


Rewind

by losingmymindtonight



Series: Webcams and Webshooters [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, News Media, Paparazzi, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Press and Tabloids, Social Media, Tags May Change, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, YouTube
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2019-10-31 17:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 39,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17853647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/losingmymindtonight/pseuds/losingmymindtonight
Summary: Tony Stark had hated the media for as long as he could remember.Camera flashes, shouts for comment, gross invasions of privacy: these were all integral parts of Tony Stark’s world. Even as a toddler, he’d grown used to the concept that his life was not entirely his own. A part of him would always belong to the public.It was a life he wouldn't wish on anyone. It was certainly a life he would never wish on Peter.(Or: The story of how Peter Parker become an internet sensation, as seen through Tony's eyes.)





	1. November 16

**Author's Note:**

> *to the tune of Coldplay’s The Scientist* oh let’s yeet back to the start

Tony Stark had been having a good day.

(In retrospect, this probably should’ve been his first hint that everything was about to go to shit.)

First of all, he’d actually woken up naturally. Not from a nightmare or an emergency alarm blaring daggers into his skull. Nope. None of that. Instead, he’d woken up to sunlight streaming through his bedroom windows and gentle silence.

That  _ never  _ happened. Tony couldn’t even  _ remember  _ the last time that had happened.

So, yeah, that probably should’ve set off red flags right away.

He hadn’t ached that much when he stood up, either. In fact, he’d felt  _ good _ . Young. Like he could get in the suit without popping a few-too-many Advil first.

The kitchen was clean, the fridge full. The coffee maker seemed faster than usual, and he didn’t even have a headache by the time he started on his first cup. F.R.I.D.A.Y. didn’t pop in with any urgent messages or alerts. A check of Peter’s tracker showed that the kid had made it to school safe and sound, probably sitting in one of those shitty desks while a monotone teacher droned on and on about the Industrial Revolution.

Yeah, Tony Stark had been having a pretty good day.

Then his phone rang.

At first, he thought it was just another nice surprise in a line of nice surprises. After all, Pepper didn’t usually call him in the mornings. She had fancy CEO things to do.

He didn’t even consider the possibility that an unexpected call from the CEO of your company at 10:00 in the morning might be a  _ bad  _ thing.

Ever heard of being lulled into a false sense of security? Yeah, Tony had, too. He just wasn’t thinking about it at that exact moment.

Whoops.

“Morning, Pep. To what do I owe the pleasure? You miss me that much already?”

Pepper’s voice came out and hit his morning's comfortable glide like friction. “Don’t flirt with me, Tony. Not now.”

He groaned internally.  _ Of course  _ his peace couldn’t last. When did it ever? “What did I do this time?”

“For once? Nothing.”

Oh. Well  _ that  _ was a nice change, at least. “So it’s  _ not  _ my fault? I’m shocked.” He settled down on one of the leather couches in the penthouse lounge and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. “Where’s the fire?”

“Somewhere that you’re  _ not  _ going to like.”

“In my defense, I don’t actually enjoy making your job more difficult.”

“ _ Tony _ .” Pepper’s exasperation came out more like exhaustion. Like she wasn’t quite sure what to say, or how to say it. And that was  _ not  _ a nice change. “It’s Peter.”

He sat upright. His feet hit the ground with a soft  _ thump _ . “Huh? Peter?” He forced himself not to roll his eyes. “What’d the kid do  _ this  _ time?”

“Nothing, Tony. This time it’s our fault.”

“I don’t like the way that sounds.”

“You shouldn’t.”

He tightened his grip on the phone, airy confidence morphing into concern. “What’s happened, Pep? Tell me.”

“Do you remember that employee server hack from a few weeks ago?”

He paused, sifting through his admittedly spotty memory of company memos and meetings. “Gonna be honest with you, honey. Not really.”

“You wouldn’t.” She sighed. “About two weeks ago, SI’s employee servers were hacked. It wasn’t anything big. They didn’t even get employee’s personal files, just their company IDs and basic clearance information. Our analysts estimated that only 10% of our workbase was even affected. A couple of our security guys beefed up the code and we all moved on.”

“Okay,” he said slowly, “so why are we talking about it now?”

“Because they  _ did  _ get ID information. That means names, heights,  _ clearance levels _ .” Pepper paused, like a delay may soften the blow. “And it looks like Peter was in that compromised 10%.”

He stuttered for a second, blindsided by the revelation. Then, he snapped.

“Why the  _ fuck  _ didn’t we know about this after the initial hack? You’re telling me our IT guys couldn’t pinpoint exactly whose information was compromised?”

“They  _ did _ , Tony. But, like I said, nobody looked too closely at it. They didn’t get enough for it to be a security threat. Most of the info was in the public domain anyway. A kid on library Wifi can Google a list of our employees.”

“But  _ Peter- _ ”

“Was a  _ secret _ , Tony. Nobody besides you, me, Rhodey, and Happy know about him.  _ Of course  _ his name wouldn’t flag anything when security checked it out.”

“His clearance should’ve.”

“They weren’t looking for clearance.”

“That was an oversight.”

“Yes, maybe it was. But none of that matters at this point, Tony, because surely  you understand what this means?”

He nodded, brain already flicking through possible scenarios. “It means we’ve got a hacker to bribe, and quick.”

“No, Tony.” There was something defeated in Pepper’s tone. “It’s too late for that.”

“It’s… It’s  _ what _ ?”

“Google Peter’s name.”

“ _ Excuse _ me?”

“Do it, Tony. Just… Just do it, alright?”

He swallowed. “F.R.I.D.A.Y.? Google Peter Parker, and tell me the first results that pop up.”

“Try to stay calm,” Pepper said gently.

“I am calm.”

“You may not be in a minute.”

“Boss,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. seemed unperturbed by the results, but that really didn’t say much, “are you ready?”

“Yeah, FRI. Hit me.”

“There has been a major spike in both Google searches and posted online content involving Peter Parker within the last few hours. The publications from this morning are all from news agencies. The most recent article is titled  _ Tony Stark: Deadbeat Dad or Cradle Robber? The Peter Parker Mystery UNCOVERED.  _ However, there are a variety of more professional news sources within my results. For example, WHiH World News published an article 43 minutes ago titled  _ A Stark Sized Scandal: Everything We Know So Far About The Peter Parker Leak _ . Would you like me to continue?”

“No.” He felt like he’d just been punched in the gut. “That’s enough.”

“Of course, Boss.”

For a minute, neither he nor Pepper spoke.

“So,” the fatigue in her tone made so much more sense now, “that’s the fire.”

“Well,” he floundered for the right words, “ _ fuck _ .”

“That sounds about right.” He could hear Pepper typing at a keyboard in the background of the call. “We’re way past stopping the leak. At this point, all we can do is manage it.”

He rubbed a hand down his face.  _ Keep your cool, Stark. Keep your fucking cool. _ “Okay. Alright. Let’s… Let’s run through this again. Exactly what info do they have on the kid?”

“Right now? Just his name, age, basic demographics, and security clearance.”

“That’s what bit us in the ass, wasn’t it? The damn security clearance.”

“Yeah.” One of the key’s made an particularly loud  _ click  _ as Pepper slammed it. “I’ve read a couple of the articles. They’re all focusing in on the level 10.”

“Obviously. He’s just a regular intern otherwise.”

“Exactly.”

This time, he groaned aloud. “If they’ve got his name and age, it’s only a matter of time before they connect the rest of the dots.”

He could practically see Pepper nodding in agreement. “You’re right. It’s only a matter of time before they pull up his birth certificate, his school registrations. From there they’ll find his address, his phone number. You know how this works. You know what they’ll do.” He did, too. He knew exactly what they’d do, the lengths they’d go to in order to monopolize on the story. “You need to get him and May to the Tower. Their safety has to come before anything else. I’ll handle the media fallout from here if you handle them.”

“Fuck,  _ May _ .” He hadn’t even thought about her. “What the hell am I supposed to tell May?”

Pepper’s response was full of dry humor. “The truth, maybe?”

“Wow. Thank you, Pep. Have I ever told you that you’re a lifesaver?”

“Not as much as you should.” Her voice softened. “How about this? I’ll call May if you get Peter. You can sign him out of school, right? May’s given you permission to do that?”

“Yeah, yeah. For emergencies.”

“This counts, I think. What will you tell the school?”

“The truth. They need to know. The moment the media figures out that the kid goes there, at least a dozen reporters will be busting down their doors begging for a comment.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I know I’m right.” He stood, kicked the nearest leg of the coffee table irritably. “I’ve lived this, remember? Howard took my third grade teacher to court for releasing my grades to the press.”

“At least he cared enough to do it.”

“It wasn’t that. I got a fucking B in science. Beat the shit out of me for it. Can you imagine his horror when he realized the media knew?” He let out a bitter laugh, years old resentment bubbling to the surface. “Thought he was gonna have a coronary.”

Pepper’s breath rushed through the receiver. “Oh, Tony.”

He winced at the sympathy in her voice. “Yeah, well, it’s over. Gotta focus on the now, and the now involves an oblivious kid in the middle of a media shitstorm. Guess I better go break the news about the news.”

“Take Happy with you.”

“I’m perfectly capable of picking up a sixteen year old kid from a high school without Happy, thank you very much. It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”

“I’m sure you are, but what will you do if the media figures out his school before you can get him out?” In Pepper’s defense, she  _ did  _ sound apologetic. “Take Happy. For Peter’s sake, Tony. He can focus on the security, and you’re free to handle the kid.”

“You mean I’m free to handle all the emotional baggage?”

“Well, if you want to put it that way…”

“Oh, no. This is a great idea. After all, they do call me Tony Stark: Feelings Extraordinaire. Oh, wait. They  _ don’t _ call me that. Wonder why.”

“Maybe because you’re stalling on the phone with me instead of doing what needs to be done?”

He glared down at the phone. “That hurt.”

“It was meant to.” He could  _ taste  _ Pepper’s smirk. “Now  _ go _ . I’ll handle May and everything else. Surely you’re capable of looking after a single teenager?”

“Jury’s out.”

“Goodbye, Tony. Good luck.”

“I don’t believe in luck.”

“Mhm.”

The line went dead, and he stared down at his phone’s blank screen for a solid 30 seconds.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“Yes, Boss?”

“Am I dreaming? Having a stroke? Drunk?”

“Not that my sensors are aware of.”

He blew out a breath. “Awesome.”

All this, and he had been having  _ such  _ a good day.

\--

The car rocked a little as Happy jammed it into park outside of Midtown.

“I’ll get the kid. You stay here.”

“Uh, nope.” Tony was already shaking his head before Happy could finish. “And since when did  _ you  _ give  _ me  _ orders?”

“Since forever. You make terrible decisions.”

“I do not.”

“You’re making one right now.”

“Listen, Hap, I appreciate your concern, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing dangerous about the receptionist at a high school for super-nerds.”

“The receptionist isn’t the concern, Tony. What if someone spots you? There’ll be paparazzi swarming before you can blink. You want that?”

“ _ No _ .” Why was everything being so goddamn  _ frustrating  _ today? “But this debate doesn’t even matter, because they won’t sign him out to you. He’s a minor, remember? They don’t just hand 16 year olds over to whoever asks for them.”

Happy twisted in his seat and lifted a dubious eyebrow. “And they’ll hand him over to you?”

“Considering I’m one of his emergency contacts, yes.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope.”

“Since when did his aunt put you down as a contact?”

“Since I realized he had no one else. It’s not a big deal. Just helping out.”

There was something on Happy’s face that suggested he didn’t believe him. “Sure.”

He glared, shoving open his door irritably. “I assume you’re coming with?”

Happy followed, looking way too amused at his displeasure for Tony’s taste. “Obviously.”

“Well, hurry up then.”

Happy had to jog to catch up with him as he stalked towards the school’s entrance. “Do you even know where the office is?”

“I imagine it’s beside the front entrance.”

“That’s just a clever way of saying you don’t know.”

He grit his teeth. “I’ll find it.”

The front office was, in fact, in the front of the building. It took all of four seconds to find it once he strolled through the visitor’s entrance, considering the fact that you had to walk through the office before you could actually get access to the school.

He cataloged that information for later.  _ Decent intent in security, could use some improvement, but the infrastructure’s already there. _

He tried to pour as much charm as possible into his smile as he approached the middle aged lady working at the main desk. “Morning. Tony Stark, here to pick up Peter Parker.”

The receptionist blinked up at him, briefly overwhelmed by the usual expression of  _ oh-my-god-Tony-Stark-is-standing-right-in-front-of-me _ , and then turned slowly to the monitor in front of her. “Tony… Tony  _ Stark _ ? For Peter Parker?”

“Yep.”

She pursed her lips. “What, uh, what reason?”

He snorted. “You seen the news this morning?”

The confusion on her face gave him the answer before she could even speak. “No?”

“Yeah, well, you got a phone or something? Pull it up. It’ll probably explain better than I can.”

To be fair to her, she didn’t question him. She just silently pulled out her iPhone and opened the News app.

Tony winced. God, it was the first story to pop up. That… wasn’t ideal.

The woman stared, dumbstruck, before slowly dragging her gaze back up and setting her phone off the side.

“That’s... not something I see everyday.”

“No, I imagine it isn’t.”

A flash of annoyance snapped across her face. “So you’re taking him out of class to, what,  _ hide him _ ?”

He forced himself not to flinch at the accusation in her tone. “Essentially.”

Her eyes danced over to Happy. “Is that your bodyguard?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head, typing something in the system with the precision of someone who spent most of their days in front of a computer. “It’s a cold world you’re dragging this boy into, Mister Stark.”

He swallowed. “I know.”

“Do you?” Before he could reply, she picked up a phone and spoke loudly into the receiver. “Peter Parker, please report to the front office.” She hung up and turned her attention back to Tony. “Do you know when he’ll be back at school?”

“We’ll… be in touch.”

“Mm.”

The next five minutes were full of awkward silence. By the end of it, even Happy was starting to shift uncomfortably.

Thankfully, Peter Parker had never been one for quiet.

For once, Tony found himself infinitely grateful for that quirk.

“Mister Stark!” The kid sounded like he’d won the goddamn lottery as he came bolting into the office. “Mister Happy! What’re you guys doing here?”

Oh, great. So the kid  _ also  _ didn’t know. If he was being honest, he’d kind of been hoping someone had spilled the beans in the hallway or something.

Obviously not.

“Long story. I’ll tell you in the car.” He glanced to the receptionist and ignored the cold look in her eyes. “He good to go?”

“If he’s ready.”

“I am!”

“Yeah?” He glanced at the kid’s backpack, only half-slung over his shoulder. “You got everything?”

“Yep!”

“Alright. Good. Let’s bounce.” He shot a salute at the receptionist as he and Happy herded the kid towards the door. “Thanks for your help.”

“Mhm.”

Peter turned back to wave. “Bye, Mrs. Knox!”

For the first time, the woman’s eyes melted. “Have a nice day, Peter.”

“I will!”

_ Yeah,  _ Tony thought, heart constricting,  _ sorry, kid, but you probably won’t. _

\--

The door to the Audi slammed shut, and Peter started talking.

To be fair, Tony didn’t really know what he was expecting. It wasn’t like Peter had ever been the kind to  _ not  _ ask questions.

“Is it a mission? Do you need Spider-Man? Cause, like, I’m  _ so  _ ready if it’s a mission. Or is it a science thing? Are we going to a conference? Something cool? Oh, oh, are we gonna-”

He held up a hand, effectively silencing the tirade. “None of the above.”

One day, the innocence in Peter’s eyes was gonna kill him. “Then what’s up?”

“We have a… situation.”

“A situation? What kind of situation?”

How was he supposed to say this?  _ Shit _ . “A press situation.”

“A… A press situation?”

He forced himself to pick his words carefully. “A few weeks ago, a hacker broke through the security surrounding some SI employee records. It didn’t seem important at first, because all they got was some ID and clearance info.”

Peter shook his head slowly. Tony could practically see his brain working. “What does this have to do with me?”

“We’re getting there.” He took a breath. “We didn’t realize it at the time, but your ID file was one of the ones that was compromised.”

The kid’s face screwed up in confusion. “So they got, what, my name?”

He sighed.  _ God _ , this was exhausting. How was he supposed to explain to a 16 year old kid that his entire life was about to go down in flames because of a simple system hack?

_ He’s never going to be normal ever again, and it’s all my goddamn fault. _

“Your name isn’t the issue here, kid. Everyone at your school knows you have an internship with me. The issue is the security clearance.”

For some reason, that piece of information seemed to startle the kid. “What? Why?”

“Because you have level 10 clearance, Pete.”

Peter just stared at him, uncomprehending.

_ Patience, Stark. Don’t lose your patience. This isn’t the kid’s fault. _

_ It’s yours. _

_ Don’t be Howard. Don’t be Howard. Don’t be Howard. _

“There are only four people who have that level of clearance in the Tower, Peter.” He focused all his energy on keeping his tone gentle. “You, me, Pepper, and Rhodey. That’s it. Nobody else. Do you understand that that means? It singles you out. Whoever did the hack must’ve sorted through the info they got and noticed. It signals that you’re not just a regular intern. That you’re something more… interesting.”

_ That you’re something important to me. They know I trust you. _

_ And I don’t trust people. Everyone with eyes and a brain knows that. _

Peter blinked. “Oh.”

Any other day, the dumbfounded look on the kid’s face might’ve been funny. Now, though, it just made guilt weigh heavy in his chest.

“Yeah. Oh.”

“So I’m… on the news?”

God, what an innocent thing to say. Tony really wanted to throw up. “All over it, yeah.”

“So,” Peter wrung his hands together, “so… what do we do?”

“That’s the million dollar question, kiddo, and I don’t know the answer. Not yet, anyway.”

“They don’t know I’m Spider-Man though, right?”

“No, no.” At least he could reassure the kid of  _ that _ . “Nothing about Spider-Man.”

“That’s okay, then.” Suddenly, Peter’s head snapped up and his shoulders tensed. “Wait,  _ May _ . If… If they know about me, they can find out about her, right?”

“Relax, squirt, I’m one step ahead of you. Pepper texted me on the way to Midtown. May knows, and she should be at the Tower before we are.”

“So she’s safe?”

“Absolutely.”

“Oh, good.” Peter slouched back into the leather seat with a tentative smile. “So what happens next?”

Kid knew how to ask the right questions, Tony would give him that. “We’ll meet up with May and Pepper back at the Tower. Pepper’ll be able to give us a briefing on the media damage. Then, we’ll… we’ll all work together to decide what to do.”

Peter nodded. “Okay.”

He looked so small, with the arms of his Decathlon sweatshirt pulled over his hands and backpack crumbled at his feet. He looked like… he looked like a  _ kid _ .

A kid that’d never get to be a kid again.

And you know what? Tony had been having a  _ really  _ good fucking day.

\--

May and Pepper were already standing at the kitchen’s breakfast counter when the elevator opened.

“May!” Peter detached himself from his side straight away, making a beeline for his aunt like no one else in the world mattered. 

Tony tried not to feel too offended, but he couldn’t help the pang of jealousy that filled his stomach.

“Hey to you too.” She wrapped her arms around the kid and held him close. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, yeah.”

“Did Tony explain everything to you?”

Peter’s gaze darted towards the floor. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

May shook her head. “Oh, baby. What could you possible have to be sorry for?”

“It’s just… all this happened and now you’re having to take off work because of me.”

Tony stepped into the kitchen with a sigh. “Your aunt is taking off work because  _ I  _ didn’t keep track of my security. My fault, not yours.”

May shot him a glare. “Funny how both of you are wrong. I’m taking off work because of an event that  _ neither of you  _ have any blame in. Now,” she straightened authoritatively as Peter quietly removed himself from her arms, “I think we need to plan.”

As if summoned by the prospect of organization, Pepper cleared her throat. “We’ll have to develop our plans as the media reacts, but we can anticipate some things. For one, we’ll have to figure out a way to get proper security into your apartment.”

Peter glanced between the adults. “How long will that take?”

Pepper gave him a gentle smile. “Long enough that you two will have to stay here.”

He jumped in before Peter could protest. “It’ll be like a sleepover. What kind of teenager doesn’t like sleepovers?”

May squeezed the kid’s arm. “Just think about it, Peter. You’re gonna have a whole design lab in the same building as you. By the time the apartment’s ready again, you won’t want to leave.”

He nodded. All he wanted was to wipe that dejected look off of Peter’s face. “Tower’s got a private swimming pool, too. Laser tag on one of the lower floors. A killer restaurant in the lobby. Not as good as Disney, I’ll admit, but something tells me you’ll have a ball.”

Peter’s voice came out forlorn. “Yeah.”

Before he could really think about it, he was crossing the space between him and the kid and dropping a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” he have the kid’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, “cheer up, yeah? I’ll figure it out. I swear that I will. I’m gonna figure this out for you.”

Peter looked up at him with trust bleeding, raw and bright, through his gaze. “I know you will. I trust you.”

Tony shook his head, swallowing hard against the lump suddenly forming in his throat.

_ God, kid, why would you ever do that? _


	2. November 17

Tony learned a multitude of things on his first day living with the Parkers.

The first was that May woke up  _ ridiculously  _ early.

By the time he wandered into the living room, headache already forming behind his eyes from lack of caffeine, she and Pepper were both bustling around the kitchen, chatting animatedly and  _ too goddamn cheerful _ .

His sleep-addled brain could only really handle one thought about the whole situation.

_ Great. Now there’s two of them. _

Pepper smiled as he ambled up to a barstool and sat down heavily, joints popping and back aching. “Morning, honey.”

He grunted back in greeting.

May laughed. “Not much of a morning person, Tony?”

Thankfully, Pepper answered for him. It wasn’t like he  _ wanted _ to be rude, but talking in the mornings was a solid  _ not happening _ . “Tony’s not really an any time of day person, but I think you’ll find that he’s much more social once we get a cup of coffee into him.”

Sure enough, decided that he was conscious enough for light conversation about halfway through said cup of coffee.

Nobody knew him like Pepper.

“Where’s the kid?”

May snorted. “He’s a teenager, Tony, and it’s Saturday. He won’t be up until noon.”

He blinked. “Right. Jesus, how do you have the  _ patience _ ?”

May smirked. “How do  _ you  _ have the patience?”

“I get to give him back at the end of the day, that’s how.”

“Well, not anymore.”

Pepper laughed, obviously enjoying the look of horror on his face. “Aren’t you the one who’s been bugging me for a baby, Tony? This’ll be a good trial run. You should be grateful.”

May looked surprised. “I didn’t know you two wanted kids.”

Something fond sparked in Pepper’s eyes. “We didn’t. This is a recent development.”

“Since when?”

“Since  _ Peter _ .”

“No, no.” Both women just smirked at him. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m just… considering our options.”

“Mhm.”

“Well,” May leaned against the counter with a grin, “maybe Pepper’s right. You can help me raise the teenager for a few weeks, see how you like it.”

“Is this some kind of sick punishment?”

“No.” May smiled. Her expression was practically oozing love. Tony couldn’t tell if he was envious or disgusted. “Contrary to popular belief, I’ve actually loved raising my teenager.”

“Yeah, well, Peter’s special.”

“He is.”

They were all quiet for a while after that, nursing their respective mugs of coffee and enjoying that particular brand of suspended peace that weekend mornings brought.

“I should probably brief you both on the media situation,” Pepper finally said.

May set her coffee down on the counter and straightened. “Has anything else happened?”

“Just a whole lot of speculation, mostly. They’ve found out he goes to Midtown, tracked down a couple of articles about him winning science fairs and other STEM awards. I don’t think they’ve figured out your address yet, which is good.”

Tony cleared his throat. “But that means that he can’t go back to Midtown on Monday. They’ll tear him to shreds.”

Pepper nodded. “I agree, unfortunately.”

May looked between them slowly. “So what do we do? He has to get an education. He can’t just drop out of high school.”

He was shaking his head before she could finish. “Of course he can’t. We have options. There’s tons of private academies in New York that cater towards kids of celebrities. Those might work. He’s bright enough to get into the elite ones, and they’ll offer a top tier education  _ and  _ the security he’ll need.”

“But all of his friends are at Midtown, Tony. His whole life is centered there. We can’t just tear it away. Not  _ now _ . Not when so much is already going to change that we  _ can’t _ control.”

Pepper chimed in before he could think of a response. “A new private academy isn’t our only option. If Midtown would be willing to work with us, we could fund them an entirely new security system. Once the initial media frenzy settles, he could go back.”

May seemed placated by the suggestion. “And what will we do until then?”

“I’ll teach him.”

Both May and Pepper physically turned to stare at him. In the end, however, it was Pepper who spoke.

“You’ll  _ what _ ?”

He swallowed. “I said that I’ll teach him.”

More blank stares.

“C’mon,” he felt strangely self-conscious at their obvious shock, “it won’t be  _ hard _ . Kid’s a genius. We can get his work from the school, and I’ll give him the lessons.” He shrugged. “It’s not like I don’t have the time.”

“You won’t just be teaching him STEM, Tony. He’ll need history, English…”

“And? Does everyone forget that my parents sent me to Phillips Exeter? I’ve had the humanities beat into me. I’m pretty sure I can help the kid write a couple essays on Hamlet.”

“Tony, are you sure?” May seemed genuinely concerned. “It’s a lot of responsibility.”

“I’m sure.”

“Well, that’s  _ something _ settled, at least.” Pepper pulled out her phone and started typing. “I’ll get in contact with his principle over the weekend, set up a meeting for early next week. If we’re quick on it, we can get everything sorted before he can fall too far behind.”

May dragged a finger around the rim of her coffee cup, obviously thinking. “I need to go back to the apartment today, get some stuff. Peter and I are both low on clothes, for one, and I’d like to grab a few other valuables, just in case.”

He winced. “Can it wait until tomorrow? It’s Happy’s day off, and it seems dangerous to send you alone.”

“I can handle myself.”

“I’m sure you can, but I’d feel terrible if anything happened to you, and then the kid would have to kill me.”

Pepper glanced up. “Rhodey’s supposed to come over this afternoon. Why don’t you ask if he can go with her?”

“That’s… a good idea.”

She rolled her eyes. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t mean it like  _ that- _ ”

She just laughed. “I know, honey. Don’t panic.”

“You say that like I’m not already panicking.”

“Well,  _ stop  _ panicking.”

He winked. “I’ll consider your proposal.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Thank you.”

“Wasn’t a compliment.”

“Wasn’t it?”

May was watching the exchange with a soft smile on her face. There was something forlornly nostalgic in her gaze, and Tony remembered all at once that she’d only lost her husband about a year ago.

“You two are perfect for each other.”

“Well, I hope so,” he grinned, “since we aren’t signing any prenups. If this goes South, then she’ll fleece me in court.”

“Don’t worry, honey,” Pepper smiled back, “I’ll make sure to leave you 12% of the assets.”

“You’re never gonna let that one go, are you?”

“Never.”

\--

Peter wandered into the living room at exactly 12:05, bleary eyed and yawning into his sweatshirt sleeve.

At that point, Tony, May, and Pepper had all migrated from the kitchen’s bar to the couches. Tony was mostly zoned into a blueprint on his StarkPad, only half listening as Pepper and May bounced from subject to subject. Something told him that his fiancé was going to like May more than him by the end of the Parkers’ stay.

Oh well. He’d just have to steal Peter for himself, then.

May smiled at the kid as he shuffled in. “Good morning, baby. Are you hungry?”

“Mm.” Peter seemed to remember his usual manners all at once, straightening and smiling shyly at Pepper. “Hi, Miss Potts.”

“Good morning, Peter. How are you?”

“I’m, uh, I’m good, thanks. How’re you?”

“I’m well. Your aunt and I were just talking about the scholarship you earned for Midtown. I’m very impressed.”

Peter’s cheeks flushed bright red, gaze ducking towards the carpet. “Oh. I, um, thank you, Miss Potts.”

Tony decided to sweep in and rescue the kid before he could stutter his way through another interaction. Hell, even  _ he  _ was starting to feel the second-hand embarrassment.

“Do I get a hello, or am I inconsequential?”

Peter spun around to face him. “Sorry! Hi, Mister Stark.”

“Hey, Pete. You good?”

“Yeah.”

“Slept well?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good. That’s what I like to hear.” He stood, slipping his StarkPad under one arm and reaching out for Peter with the other. “C’mon. Let’s go have some boy time.”

Peter’s nose scrunched up in confusion. “Boy time?”

“Boy time.”

“And that is?”

He rolled his eyes. “First, food. Second, lab. Sound good to you?”

Pepper stood and made a shooing motion. “How about you two just go to the workshop now? I’ll make Peter some lunch and bring it down when it’s ready.”

“Oh, Miss Potts, you don’t have to do that. I don’t need-”

Tony grabbed the kid by the arm and started dragging him towards the elevator. “Quick life lesson, buddy: it’s Pep’s world and we just live in it. If she wants to feed you, then she’s gonna feed you.”

Pepper laughed, but didn’t disagree. “Do you like pasta, Peter?”

Tony paused outside the elevator just long enough to let the kid call back an answer. “Yes ma’am.”

“Perfect. Do your best to keep Tony in line, will you?”

A cheeky grin spread across the teenager’s face. “I’ll try, but you know how he is.”

“Alright, that’s enough out of you two.” He hauled Peter into the elevator. “Bye, honey. Bye, May.”

The doors shut before either could answer.

\--

If Tony was being honest, he had zero plan once the elevator opened in his workshop. The decision to drag Peter along behind him has been a sudden one, born out of an intense desire to keep the kid busy enough that he wouldn’t be able to ponder the events of the day before.

For lack of any better ideas, Tony just sicced him on the very first project he could think of: the Iron Man suit.

He grabbed a gauntlet prototype that he didn’t care about having ruined from a random drawer and tossed it into Peter’s arms, carefully hiding his amusement at the look of awe on the kid’s face as he plopped down in front of his array of display screens.

“Go on,” he gestured to the kid’s workspace, “I’m transferring the specs to you now. Go wild.”

“Go… wild?”

“Do anything you want.” He shrugged. “Tear it to pieces just to see how it works if you feel like it.”

“I… I couldn’t-”

“Here’s a secret, Pete. Invention is 90%  _ de _ -invention. Don’t be afraid to destroy something just for the hell of it. You can always put it back together again, and it’ll probably be better.”

The kid still hesitated for a moment before carefully laying the gauntlet on the desk and examining it. Tony pulled out his phone and shot a text off to Rhodey while watching him work out of the corner of his eye.

_ TS: You mind going to the Parker apartment with Peter’s aunt today? Happy’s off and I don’t want her going alone _

_ JR: they’re staying with u? _

_ TS: Duh _

_ JR: smart move _ _   
_ _ JR: why can’t u go? _

He took a sly picture of the kid while he was staring intensely at the gauntlet’s wiring.

_ TS: That’s why _

_ JR: cute. u babysitting now? _

_ TS: Something like that. _

_ JR: very parental of u _

_ TS: Shut up. Will you go with May or not? _

_ JR: ofc I will _ _   
_ _ JR: i’m not heartless _

_ TS: Thank you _

_ JR: np _ _   
_ _ JR: have fun babysitting _

He rolled his eyes and tossed the phone onto the desk. The noise startled Peter, who glanced up from his work with wide eyes.

“Sorry, kid. How’s it going?”

“Fine.” Peter bit nervously at his lip for a second. “Have you heard anything? About… About the media stuff? Like, what’s going on? I asked F.R.I.D.A.Y. when I woke up but she wouldn’t tell me anything.”

Oh, wonderful. He’d really thought he’d had a stellar distraction going.

Obviously not.

He loved being the one to break bad news to the kid. Definitely his new favorite activity.

“It’s,” he paused, “complicated.”

The kid fixed him with beseeching eyes. “Please just tell me. I can handle it.”

He sighed, feeling surprisingly weighed down with the responsibility that had suddenly been dumped on his shoulders.

He scooted over on his workbench and patted the spot beside him. “C’mere.”

“Oh.” Peter stood and slowly made his way across the lab. “So it’s that kind of talk.”

“What do you mean?”

Peter sat next to him and shrugged. “It’s never good when an adult makes you come sit with them for a conversation. Usually means its bad news.”

“Yeah?” He examined the kid’s face silently for a moment. “Well, I suppose this isn’t exactly  _ good  _ news.”

There was a stupid look of hope on Peter’s face. For some reason, Tony felt every part of him rebel at the concept of crushing it.

“But it’s not bad news?”

“Not… exactly. We just have to manage it, yeah? And we can do that. I’ve got tons of professionals that know how to do that.”

“Yeah.” Peter picked absently at his fingernails. “But  _ how  _ do we do that? Like, how do we manage it?”

“I have some ideas, at least in the short term. But it’s gonna take time, and… and some parts of your life are going to change. You might not like some of it, but you have to trust me, alright? I wouldn’t make you do things if I didn’t think they were for the best.”

“Like?”

“Like… You won’t be going to school on Monday.”

Peter blinked, face impassive. “But… I have a quiz.”

Of all the possible reactions he’d considered, that had not been one of them.

He floundered briefly before recovering. “You can take it later.”

There was something desperate about the hope in Peter’s eyes now, like it was the only solid thing he could grab a hold of, and he was begging Tony to keep it steady.

“So I  _ am  _ going back?”

“Eventually.”

“What do you mean by  _ eventually _ ?”

Frustration bubbled in his chest. Why couldn’t the kid just  _ get it _ already?

“I mean that we have security to worry about. We can’t send you back until Midtown is prepared to meet those concerns.”

“You mean because… the press is gonna follow me?”

_ Them, and everyone else. _

“Yeah, that’s the main worry right now. But we’ll figure it out, and you’ll be back to your nerd school quicker than you think. Pepper’s working on it.”

A smile pulled at the kid’s face. “Well, if Miss Potts is on it…”

“Exactly.” He gave Peter’s shoulder a gentle push. “Now go dissect that gauntlet. Pepper’ll be down here shoving some lunch down both our throats soon enough, so your time is ticking.”

\--

Four hours and two child psychology textbooks later, he got another text from Rhodey.

_ JR: i’m here _ _   
_ _ JR: didn’t tell me that kid’s aunt is hot _

He rolled his eyes.

_ TS: Don’t let Peter see you eyeing her up. He’s very protective. _

_ JR: he shld b _

“Hey, Pete.” The kid blinked a few times as he looked at him, obviously trying to reorient himself with the real world after having spent so long concentrating. “We’ve got a visitor upstairs.”

A spark of fear flared on his face. “A good visitor?”

“Yes, yes. A good visitor. Don’t worry.”

“Oh, cool.” Peter stood and stretched. “I need a break anyway.”

“Mm. You do.” Tony was surprised by how effortless it was to fall into step with the teenager as they wandered towards the elevator, shoulders brushing as they walked. “How’d it go?”

“Good! I never really understood how you routed the power to the repulser without frying the circuits, but then I looked at the bypass system and-”

The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open to show May, Pepper, and Rhodey spread out across the living room. Peter stopped mid-rant to grin in excitement.

“Mister Rhodey!”

The man waved from the couch, obviously amused by the kid’s enthusiasm. “ _ Rhodey _ , Peter. It’s just Rhodey.”

“Right, yeah.” The kid was practically vibrating with excitement as he bolted into the room, and Tony felt a flash of gratitude at his best friend for being such an effective distraction. “So what’re you doing here?”

He leaned against the wall. “Rhodey and May are gonna go grab some things from your apartment.”

“Oh, can I come?”

May glanced back at Tony. “I don’t think so, honey. Not this time.”

“Why not? It’s not like I have anything else to do.”

“It’s not that, Pete.” He couldn’t help but realize that this was just the first of dozens of restrictions he’d have to place on Peter in the coming months. “It’s just that… we don’t want to risk anyone spotting you.”

“So, what,” Peter snorted, voice joking, “you’re just gonna hold me hostage in the Tower for the rest of my life?”

“Not for the rest of your life, Peter. Don’t be dramatic.”

Horrified realization filled the kid’s eyes. “But you  _ are  _ holding me hostage?”

“You’re not a hostage. You’re just…”

“Not allowed to leave?”

_ Fuck _ . He really,  _ really  _ hated upsetting the kid. “I... don’t think it’s a good idea for you to leave. That’s all.”

“So if I walked into the elevator and told F.R.I.D.A.Y. to take me to the lobby? Would she do it?”

For about half a second, he thought about lying. But that was something his father would’ve done, and he didn’t think he’d be able to live with the guilt of it.

He shook his head. He hoped with everything he had that the kid could see the regret in his eyes. “...No, she wouldn’t.”

Something akin to betrayal fell across Peter’s face. “So I  _ am  _ a hostage.”

“Peter,” May’s tone was full of soft chastisement, “you’re looking at this the wrong way. Tony’s just trying to protect you. We all are.”

“By taking away my entire life?”

He wished the kid would scream. Shout. Get pissed. He knew how to handle that kind of shit.

But Peter didn’t look angry at all. He just looked… defeated.

And that was _ so much worse. _

He took a step towards him, but Peter shrank away. Within a second, he’d darted to the side, rushing to the door that lead to the hallway.

Tony spun to look back at him.

“Pete…”

“I… I just wanna be alone.” The kid looked up at him with teary eyes. “Please.”

He faltered. “Okay. That’s, uh, that’s fine.”

_ Good job, Stark. That’s the perfect way to comfort a teenager who’s stressed out of his mind. You’re fucking acing this. _

Before he could say anything to redeem himself, though, the kid was gone.

He has no idea how long he stood there before a heavy hand landed on his shoulder.

“He’ll be alright, Tones.” Rhodey’s voice was dripping with sympathy. “He’s just a kid. It was only a matter of time before he got a little overwhelmed. He’ll get over it.”

“He’s right, Tony.” May moved to stand in front of him. She seemed surprisingly calm about the whole situation, and Tony couldn’t help but envy her for it. “These moments happen. You’ll get used to them.”

“You mean there’ll be  _ more _ ?”

She laughed. “Definitely.”

He wondered briefly if he could just take on a whole new identity, move somewhere far away and mark the past 48 hours off on a list of shit he didn’t think about.

But that would mean abandoning Peter to his fate, and he couldn’t even entertain the thought of doing that.

Instead, he just groaned.

“Wonderful. I can’t wait.”


	3. November 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case y'all haven't guessed on your own, the current outline for this story is setting it up to be the longest fic (chapter-wise) that I've ever written  
> so, uh, buckle in?

“Thanks for coming, Hap.”

The man snorted as he wandered into the penthouse living room, not even sparing the elaborate décor a second glance. He’d been here enough not to be overawed. “Well, it’s not like you employ me or anything.”

Tony laughed in return and gestured for Happy to join him on one of the couches. “This isn’t exactly me talking to you as an employer, though. It’s more… me asking you a favor as a friend.”

Happy sat across from him and raised a questioning eyebrow. “My curiosity is overwhelming me.”

He rolled his eyes at the quip. “It’s about the kid.”

Happy straightened, expression becoming serious. “He okay? I’ve been worried about him, but I didn’t wanna pry.” He leaned forward, and Tony could see his own anger reflected in the man’s eyes. “Can’t be easy for him to handle all this shit.”

He cringed at the statement, thinking back to Peter’s breakdown the day before. He hadn’t seen him since. All he knew was that May had brought the kid some dinner once she’d gotten back from their apartment, and she’d come out a few hours later with a pinched expression on her face.

He hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask what had happened. He’d just disappeared off into the lab and worked through the night.

The distraction of invention hadn’t done anything to slow the guilt gnawing away at his chest, but at least he’d been able to have his eventual breakdown in private.

“He’s… surviving.”

“Yeah? Then why do you like like someone ran over your dog?”

“I do  _ not- _ ”

“Yeah, you do.”

He glared, but relented. There were only a handful of people who could see right through him, but Happy was one of them. Denial wouldn’t do anything productive at this point. “Kid and I had a little… disagreement last night. That’s all.”

“About?”

Oh, yes. Let’s dig right into his least favorite subject. How else would he want to start his day, anyway? 

“He can’t leave the Tower. It’s just not safe. I know that, Pepper knows that, you know that. Hell, even  _ May  _ knows that. But… it’s hard to get that kinda shit across to a teenager, y’know? I don’t think he’s really grasping the gravity of what’s happening.”

“Well, have you told him?”

He felt caught off guard by the question. “What?”

Happy smirked at his surprise. “Have you explained what’s happening?”

“I mean, of course I have-”

“I don’t mean have you told him the basic details. I mean… have you explained how his life is gonna change?  _ Why  _ his life is gonna change? What he should expect from all of this?” The man shrugged. “You’re the one to tell him. You’ve lived it, after all, and nothing educates like experience.”

“I… didn’t even think about it.”

Happy let out a dry chuckle. “Y’know, Tony, you can be kinda dull for a genius.”

“You’re telling me.”

They sat quietly for a while, but it wasn’t comfortable. With each passing moment, Tony could feel his guilt growing.

“Tony,” he looked up to find a surprising amount of sympathy in Happy’s gaze, “this isn’t your fault, y’know. You’re just doing what you’ve gotta do to keep him safe. There’s nothing shameful about that.”

“But he’s  _ miserable _ , Hap. He’s scared, and confused, and he feels like I’m ruining his life.”

“You’re just trying to protect him.”

“But he doesn’t know that.”

“Then  _ talk to him,  _ for god’s sake. Pete’s a good kid, and he’s brilliant. You’ve gotta give him a chance to understand. It’s his life, after all. Don’t you think he has a right to an explanation?”

He sighed. “Yeah…”

“So what’d you call me here for?” That was Happy, alright. He liked to keep everything in order, running gear to gear with brutal efficiency. It was times like this that Tony found himself intensely grateful for that trait. “I assume the favor you talked about is a little more than just having a heart to heart.”

“Shit, yes.” He shook his head, silently berating himself for losing track of his point. He couldn’t afford to do that anymore, not when Peter was involved. “Kid’s gonna need security. For now we’re just keeping him in the Tower, but you and I both know that we can’t keep that up forever. He can’t just… stop living.” He purposefully ignored the echoes of  _ so I am a hostage? _ that tightened around his throat. “When it’s safe enough for him to start going out again, he’ll need someone to keep an eye on him.”

That was a very casual way for Tony to say that he had to assign someone to watch the kid’s every move for the rest of his foreseeable existence.

Happy nodded, not even waiting for Tony to elaborate before speaking. “I’ll do it.”

He blinked, surprised. “I didn’t even ask you anything yet.”

Happy snorted. “I’m not an idiot, Tony. I know that you’re asking me to head his security detail, and I’ll do it.”

“You can think about it. It’s a lot to ask, and I know you weren’t thrilled about babysitting him after Berlin.”

Happy shook his head. “That was then, Tony. I didn’t know the kid. Thought he was just some snot-nosed brat that’d run off as soon as shit got tough. Plus, you’ll have to forgive me for being a little distrusting of anyone close to you at that point.”

The memories from Siberia were still burned in his mind, bright as embers. They flared up at Happy’s reminder, fierce and painful.

“C’mon, Hap.” He forcefully cleared his throat. “Peter’s about as intimidating as a puppy.”

“And there was a time when we would’ve said that about Steve, too.”

There was something solemn in Happy’s expression as he said it. Something angry. Every once in a while, Tony forgot that it was just as hard for his friends to see him after Siberia, bloody and bruised and broken, as it was for him to recover from it.

He wasn’t the only one who felt that day haunting him.

Happy shook his head, obviously sensing his distress. “I’m sorry, Tony, but…”

He waved a hand, dismissing the apology before it could even get off the ground. “Don’t say you’re sorry when you’re right.” He ran a hand down his face. “But this… this isn’t about Steve. This is a brand-new shitstorm, and this time it’s about an innocent kid. All I want to do is keep his life as stable as possible, and you’re… familiar. He knows you. He  _ trusts  _ you. Might be easier for him to swallow if it’s you.”

“I agree.” Happy shrugged. “Not like I’d trust anyone else to keep the kid away from those bastards anyway.”

Tony couldn’t help the wry smile that tugged at his lips. “Aw. That’s cute, Hap. You  _ like  _ the kid.”

Happy just fixed him with a dry stare. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are we still denying that?”

“Denying what?”

“That we like him?” This time, it was Happy’s turn to smirk. “That you  _ love  _ him?”

He felt his face heat at the comment. “I don’t-”

“Mister Stark?”

In retrospect, the way he and Happy both jolted at the sound of Peter’s voice was ridiculous, really. Two grown-ass men, both trained for violent combat, getting jumpscared by a sixteen year old kid.

Tony leapt to his feet, spinning to face the doorway where Peter was standing, and froze, unsure how he was meant to proceed. “Hey, Pete.”

Peter looked between the two men and frowned. “What were you talking about?”

“Nothing.”

Peter’s face scrunched up, his disbelief plain. “You were talking about me, weren’t you?”

_ Damn this kid and his stellar intuition. _

There wasn’t any point dancing around it. Instead, he just sighed in defeat. “You’ve got terrible timing, Pete.”

For some reason, the comment earned him a tiny smile. “Or really good timing, depending on your point of view.”

He grinned back. “Touché.”

And just like that, the kid seemed to throw their previous conversation to the wind.

Tony wished he could be that carefree with his feelings.

“I, uh, I was wondering if I could have something to eat.”

“Yeah, right, of course. Uh, Pepper and May are out, but I can feed you.”  _ I can make lunch for a single teenager, right? _ “Not an issue.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.” Peter fidgeted awkwardly. “I can find something to eat by myself. I just didn’t know if I was allowed in the kitchen.”

“Of course you’re allowed, and I  _ will  _ make you something. Pepper’d kick my ass if she found out I left you to starve.”

“I wouldn’t  _ starve _ , Mister Stark-”

“Well, I’ll be off.” Happy shot Tony a glance as he headed towards the elevator. “Nice to see you, Peter. I’ll talk to you later, Tony. Just let me know when you need me.”

He shot his own sour look at the man’s retreating form when the kid wasn’t looking. “Will do.”

_ One problem down, about a million more to go. _

He gestured for Peter to follow him to the kitchen. “C’mon, kid. Food time.”

He followed meekly. “Why would you need Mister Happy?”

“He’s my head of security, Pete. There’s a lot of things I need him for.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Peter didn’t look convinced, but he  _ did  _ let it go, for which Tony was grateful.

There was only so much shit he could handle at once.

“So,” he waited until the kid hopped up onto a barstool before moving into the kitchen, “what’re you feeling? My specialties are pasta and omelettes, but I’m open to suggestions.”

“I didn’t know you could cook.”

“Not many do. It’s confidential information.”

“How’d you learn?”

He swallowed. “My mom taught me.”

Peter’s face softened. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway: pasta or omelettes?”

“I like omelettes.”

“Sounds good to me.”

He made the kid’s food in relative silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Peter seemed content to stare mindlessly out the window, taking in the view a penthouse suite in one of the tallest buildings in New York could offer. And as long as Peter was content, Tony found that he was, too.

He ended up making himself an omelette on top of the three for the kid, half to avoid Peter’s questioning glances and half because, for some reason, he was actually hungry.

It was in the middle of their meal that Peter finally acknowledged the elephant in the room.

“I’m sorry for last night. I shouldn’t have stormed off.” The kid poked at his food, expression solemn. “I was being stupid.”

“It’s alright.” He felt like he was a newborn that someone had tossed into the ocean and told to swim. He didn’t know how the handle this kind of thing, had no experience in comforting frightened teenagers. “You’re struggling. That’s… normal. I should be doing a better job of handling it.”

“You’re just doing your best.”

He smirked, feeling surprisingly bitter. “So you agree I’m fucking it up, yeah?”

“You’re not fucking it up.”  _ Whoa _ . Did that word just come out of  _ his  _ Peter Parker’s mouth? “We could both probably do better, though.”

“Mm. And how do you propose we do that?”

Peter twisted his barstool until he was staring directly at him. After a moment, Tony followed suit.

“We could try… talking about it.”

“Radical.”

A little smile played on the kid’s face. “Maybe for you, but it really isn’t that strange for normal people.”

“Well then, defender of the  _ normal people, _ ” he wasn’t sure why his chest went warm at the sight of Peter’s smile growing, but he didn’t necessarily hate the sensation either, “why don’t you start us off?”

Peter watched him for a moment, obviously gauging how to begin.

“I’m scared.”

And, okay,  _ wow _ . Tony hadn’t been expecting him to cut right to the chase, but here they were.

“I’m scared,” Peter licked his lips nervously, “and I’m confused, and nobody is telling me anything. Not really. Whenever I ask a question, you and May just dance around it until I give up. I… I know it’s because you’re trying to protect me, and I appreciate it, I do, but… but I’m  _ sixteen _ . I’m not a child. I deserve to be told what’s going on, especially because it affects me.”

“You’re right.” The kid’s eyes widened in surprise at the easy concession, but Tony just pushed forward. “It’s not fair for us to keep you in the dark. It’s your life, not ours.”

“So… you’ll tell me?”

He internally winced. “I will. From now on, if you ask me something, I’ll do my best to answer it. But, kid,” he resisted the urge to reach for the teenager, to physically shield him from the world, “you might not like what I say.”

“That’s okay.” Peter smile was sad, now, and Tony hated it. “I’m kinda a pro at handling bad news.”

Well,  _ that  _ might be the saddest goddamn thing he had ever heard.  _ Fuck _ .

“I guess you must be, yeah.” He sighed, and hoped with all he had that he wasn’t going to regret starting this conversation. “Go on, then. Ask whatever you want.”

“Oh. Well, okay. So, uh,” Peter’s eyes darted around the room before finally coming back to rest on Tony’s face, “I… I just wanna know what’s going on, really. Like, what exactly do they know?”

“I’ve already told you the basics, right?”

“The  _ very  _ basics.” The kid shifted. “A hacker leaked my name and security clearance, right? And now people are curious about it.”

“They’re more than curious. They’re… well, for lack of a better word, kid, they’re  _ obsessed _ .”

“But  _ why _ ?”

He forced down the natural flush of irritation that arose at the kid’s ignorance. God, sometimes he hated the ghosts that Howard left inside him.

“C’mon, Pete, use your brain. You aren’t brilliant for nothing, and you grew up with my face plastered all over the news. Surely you can imagine why an association with me might be problematic.”

_ There  _ was the understanding he’d been fishing for. He could practically see the pieces fitting together in Peter’s head.

“They’re interested in me because  _ you’re  _ interested in me.” The kid shook his head. “But I… I’m not special. I didn’t even  _ do  _ anything.”

_ You’re wrong. You are so, so special. More special than you’ll ever know. _

“Newsflash, buddy, you don’t  _ have  _ to do anything to be a celebrity. I mean, have you seen the Kardashians? Sometimes you’re just famous for being famous.”

For a second, the kid just stared at him vacantly. 

“So I’m… famous.”

“Essentially.”

More dumbstruck blinks. “That’s… That’s so  _ weird _ .”

“It is. Not as great as they make it look on TV, is it?”

Peter winced. “No, not really.” He bit his lip, refusing to look Tony in the face. “You don’t seem to mind it, though.”

“Oh, Pete.” For the first time in his life, he wished he’d actually stuck with a therapist for more than three sessions. Maybe if he had, he would’ve been more prepared for these kinds of conversations. “I… I mind it. I mind it  _ a lot _ , sometimes. I’m just really damn good at convincing people that I  _ don’t  _ mind it. It’s… an art.”

“I don’t think I’m gonna be very good at it.”

“You don’t have to be. A big part of the next few months is gonna be about figuring out just how you wanna handle all the bullshit that comes along with being a household name. There isn’t a right or a wrong way to do it. It’s just… whatever it is that keeps you sane.”

Peter gave him a wobbly smile. He looked perilously close to tears. “I guess there’s no hope of just… convincing them it was all fake?”

“Believe me, kid. If I thought we had a chance of that, I’d already be on it.”

“Yeah.” Peter seemed briefly lost in thought. “I mean, what do they even think? They’ve got to have theories, right? Like, I’d be coming up with tons of conspiracies if I was in their position.”

“Oh, they’ve got theories alright.” He forced himself not to wince as he remembered a few of the more…  _ colorful  _ ones. “The one that most of the media is focusing on is that you’re my secret kid.”

Peter’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “They think I’m your  _ child _ ?”

He tried not to be bothered by the shock on Peter’s face. It wasn’t like he expected the kid to find the idea appealing. After all, who would?

“Yeah.”

Suddenly, the surprise gave way to something else. Peter cocked his head to the side, contemplating the idea. “I mean,” the kid shrugged, “I guess it makes sense. It’s probably what I’d think. We even kinda look alike.”

For a few seconds, Tony let himself examine the teenager. And, fuck, he saw it. Their curls, their eyes. Hell, even their noses and jawlines were eerily similar. Without any context, even  _ Tony  _ might think that Peter was his.

_ If only he  _ was  _ mine. _

The thought startled him enough that he physically flinched. He shook his head to cover it up.

“Yeah. You can bet they’ve had a dozen forensic scientists in to compare our faces. I watched a couple of them, and it’s all bullshit, but it’s pretty entertaining, and I guess that’s their goal.” He’d learned long ago that the news was usually 10% information and 90% theatrics. “They’ve also found out that you’ve got that STEM scholarship for Midtown, on top of all the other shit you’ve been recognized for over the years. So now they’ve got a random kid, young enough to have been conceived during my playboy days, who looks like me and is obviously a budding genius, running around my Tower with the highest possible security clearance.” He sighed. “The picture practically paints itself.”

Peter looked thoughtful. “Yeah. I can’t even blame them for assuming at this point. Will all that evidence, you almost fooled  _ me _ .”

“Oh,  _ I _ can blame them.” He gave his plate an irritated shove. The action was childish, but it sure as hell felt good. “Even if you  _ were  _ my child, it doesn’t give them a right to make you their newest fucking plaything.”

Peter watched him silently, and Tony got the unsettling sensation that the kid was seeing a part of him that even he wasn’t fully aware of.

“You’re really mad about this.”

“Of course I am.”

“But… why?” Peter blinked at him, all softness and childlike intuition. “It’s not like you can change it, and it’s not like it’s your fault.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you miss the whole section of this conversation where we established that your entire life is getting fucked because of your relationship with  _ me _ ?”

“It’s not your fault they follow your every move. I mean, haven’t you been famous since you were a little kid? You didn’t choose this anymore than I did.” The kid smiled shyly. “Besides, I’d rather get to know you and deal with all this,” he gestured around him vaguely, “than the other way around.”

For some reason, the words stung in his chest like antiseptic on an open wound. “You can’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“Well, you’ll regret it before the end of the week, I’ll tell you that.”

There was a spark of mischief in the kid’s eyes now. “Is that a bet?”

“Excuse me?”

“I bet you ten bucks that I won’t regret this even a little bit, no matter what happens.”

“Do you now?” Despite the nature of the conversation, Tony couldn’t resist the smile that tugged at his face. “Didn’t know you were a gambler.”

“I’m only a gambler when I know I’m gonna win.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Do you accept my bet or not?”

“Fine. What’s the timeframe?”

“A few months?”

“The longer it is, the harder you’re making it for yourself.”

“You’re being so  _ stupid _ .” To his surprise, Peter looked genuinely exasperated. “I’m doing this to prove to you that  _ nothing  _ is gonna make me regret meeting you. Literally nothing.”

“And I’m doing this to prove to you that blind faith is never healthy.”

“It’s not blind faith.”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s…” Peter blushed. “It… It doesn’t matter what it is. It just matters that I’m gonna buy something  _ really  _ cool with my ten bucks. Just you wait.”

“Will you now?” He extended his hand for the kid to shake. “Alright then, Mister Parker. You have yourself a deal.”

The kid grinned, practically dripping confidence. “Thank you very much, Mister Stark. Excited to get beaten by a teenager?”

“For once, I’d be thrilled.”

And he really, really would be.


	4. November 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I'm hoping to keep up a better update schedule from now on, but you all know how life can be.

“Boss,” Tony glanced up from Peter’s Calculus textbook as F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice startled out of his concentration, “Mister Parker is awake. Would you like me to direct him to the lab?”

He smirked, dog-earing his page and pushing the book aside. “How awake?”

“He’s out of bed and eating a granola bar in the kitchen.”

“Then yes. Tell him it’s important.”

“Of course.”

It only took the kid a couple of minutes to make his way down to the lab. He was still chewing on a granola bar (Tony was willing to bet that this was at least his third, probably his fourth) as he wandered out of the elevator.

Tony greeted him with his arms spread wide. “Welcome to Stark’s Academy for Gifted Peters.” He gestured to the corner of the lab that he’d repurposed to function as a classroom. “What do you think?”

Peter’s eyes roved across the space, wide with awe. In fact, he looked so shocked that Tony thought he might drop his granola bar. “You did this?”

“Yep. Talked to your principal yesterday, before you were awake. Struck up a deal. I’ll teach you for the rest of the semester, and then you’ll take your finals at the school. They’ll organize a proctor.”

The kid’s mouth quirked up. “Are you even qualified to do that?”

He glared, crossing his arms with a huff. “Uh, PhD?”

A laugh, loud and unapologetic. “Yeah, in electrical engineering. That doesn’t mean you can teach me  _ English _ .”

“Peter, it’s  _ high school _ .” He rolled his eyes. “Pretty sure I can handle it.”

“I mean…” Peter raised his hands in defeat, “y’know what? That’s actually a really good point.”

“ _ Thank _ you.” He pointed to the desk he’d set up. “Now sit. We’re starting with, uh,” he glanced at his notes, “AP U.S. History.”

Peter plopped down at the desk with a groan. “Awesome.”

He smothered his agreement. _ A teacher, Stark. You’re a very important, very serious teacher. _ “So, what do you know about the Articles of Confederation?”

“They were a mistake.”

“Well, I mean, you’re not  _ wrong… _ ”

\--

In all honesty, it took Tony less than thirty minutes into their Calculus lesson to realize he wasn’t really teaching Peter anything.

(He’d had that impression all morning, really, but it had become glaringly obvious when he started lecturing about integrals and limits.)

So, he did the thing that he imagined any respectable teacher would do in his position.

He stopped mid-lesson, mid- _ sentence _ , actually, and chucked his notes across the room with a dramatic sigh.

“You know all of this already, don’t you?”

Peter shrank back, apology written all over his face. “No! No.” A pause. “Well,  _ yes _ . I mean, some of it. I just… it comes really easily to me, y’know? And I already read through the textbook when I got it, cause I was curious, so I kinda already know the basic concepts.” The kid’s eyes widened as he realized what he’d just admitted. “But-But it’s not a big deal. It’s good to go over it again. Repetition is the best teacher, and all that.”

“Chill, kid. I’m not gonna tear you a new one for being smart.” He bit his lip, thinking. “How about this: we finish up with our next lesson, which is Spanish, by the way, and tomorrow you can take one of those practice AP tests. That way we can just bypass all the shit you’ve already got on lock and focus on anything you may be shaky on.”

“What if,” Peter shifted, voice quiet, “what if you don’t have enough left to teach me?”

“Kid, I’m  _ Tony Stark _ .” He said it like it could explain the universe. Then again, to Peter, he imagined that it could. “Pretty sure I can whip up something that’ll give that big brain of yours a workout.”

The kid’s face lit up. “You think?”

For a second, he let himself imagine how stir crazy he would’ve gone without the accelerated curriculum his father forced him into. Sure, it had wrecked the hell out of his emotional and social health, but his intellect had thrived under the strain.

There was nothing he hated more than being bored, and he could see in Peter’s eyes that he was the exact same way.

“Yeah, bud, of course.”

\--

Peter finished all of his “classes” for the day in four hours flat.

It wasn’t even that they were rushing. The kid was just  _ that  _ bright.

Tony could’t wrap his head around the fact that he’d spent a lifetime in normal schools, with normal teachers that thought honors and AP courses were enough to satiate his brilliance.

He couldn’t help the side of him that saw it as a damn waste.

But now Tony had him all to himself, and it felt like he’d been handed a brand new playground. A genius kid  _ and  _ an endless budget. He was already scheming dozens of ways to  _ really  _ push the kid’s skills.

For now, though, they were sitting on the couch, taking a break from the strain of academics and waiting for both Pepper and May to come home in the evening. Pepper was off at SI meetings and May, after a few terse discussions with he and Happy, had gone back to work under a security detail.

That woman did  _ not  _ like being told no. Then again, Tony could relate.

He looked over at Peter, mentally scanning through the parenting books he’d been skimming every night since the kid started living with him.

“You did good today.” That’s what people said to kids, right? They praised them, pointed out when they excelled? “I’m, uh,”  _ I’m proud of you _ , “I’m impressed.”

Peter tucked his knees to his chest with a grin. If he was bothered by Tony’s effortless swerve of his true emotions, he didn’t show it. “Thanks, Mister Stark. And, well, thanks for teaching me, too. I know it probably isn’t what you imagined you’d be doing this week, huh?”

He shrugged. “Don’t sweat it. Beats anything else I might’ve occupied myself with, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah?”

He glanced over and accidentally met the kid’s gaze. His eyes were hopeful, and Tony felt like he’d accidentally put his hands on something delicate.

“Yeah.” That felt like the right thing to say, and the joy that swept through Peter’s expression told him that his instincts had, for once, actually been right. “Duh. I’d much rather hang out with you than a bunch of stuck up shareholders in badly-fitted suits.”

He left out the fact that he would also choose hanging out with Peter over pretty much any other activity on the planet.

“Well, I’d rather hang out with you than get pummeled with dodgeballs in gym, so we’re even.”

“Oh?” He slung his arm over the back of the couch, and nearly flinched in surprise when Peter took it as an invitation to tuck himself underneath it.

“Yeah.” The kid was warm and loose against his side. He tried desperately to mimic his posture, to unwind his muscles and breathe. “I mean, gym kinda sucks.”

“You have super strength.”

Peter snorted. “Super strength that I can’t  _ use _ .”

“You could use it a little bit.”

“Nah. Nerds aren’t good at gym. Gotta stick to the status quo, y’know?”

“No, but I’ll take your word for it.” He pulled out his phone started lazily scrolling through the emails on his phone, trying to distract himself from how secure and comforting Peter’s weight was against his ribs. “You wanna put on a movie? Remote’s right there, and F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s got everything you could ever want. Go wild.”

Peter rested his head back against Tony’s collarbone. “Do you have something you want to watch?”

“Nah.” He let his arm fall from the back of the couch to the kid’s shoulders. It felt… strange. Foreign. But not bad. Not bad at all. It satisfied some protective need lurking in his stomach, like a key in a slot. “You’re the one who did a shitload of schoolwork today. You choose.”

He saw the TV hum to life out of the corner of his eye, but was too engrossed in scanning through a particularly wordy project proposal to process the audio until it was just a little too late.

_ “-of course, there’s always the question of just what his motivations are with the child. We’ve explored the idea of a biological attachment, but I don’t think enough people are considering some of the more sinister possibilities.” _

_ “What do you mean by that?” _

_ “Well, Stark’s sexual promiscuity has never been a secret, nor has his lack of specificity when it comes to his partners. In a time when a variety of celebrity men are being revealed as sexual predators, we have to consider that Stark might be among them.” _

Tony glanced up harshly as the words sunk in, phone forgotten.

“Turn it off, Peter.”

“Wait, but they’re talking about… about  _ us _ .” The kid’s eyes were fixated on the screen, where Peter’s school ID picture ( _ how the hell did they get a hold of that? _ ) and a photo of Tony from a recent press event were hovering in the corner while two news anchors leaned close, intent on their discussion. “I want to see what they mean.”

“No. Turn it  _ off _ -”

_ “Are you insinuating that Tony Stark’s relationship with Peter Parker is a sexual one?” _

_ “I’m saying that the proper authorities need to consider the possibility. Has anyone reached out to Peter Parker since the leak? We assume that Stark’s hiding him in the Tower with his and his aunt’s consent, but none of that is actually confirmed. Someone needs to check on Peter Parker, and see if he’s in need of help.” _

Tony yanked the remote out of Peter’s suddenly lax hands, and the TV went dark with a muted  _ click _ .

Then he chucked the damn thing across the room for good measure.

“That’s…” Peter shook his head, voice slow, “that’s not  _ true _ .”

“No,” he forced himself not to let his anger leak into his words, “no, it isn’t.”

“Then why are they saying it?”

“Because I don’t have a great track record, and because there’s nothing people love more than watching their heroes fall.”

“But  _ why _ ?” Peter wrapped his arms around his knees, curling up as if the world might lose interest if he could just make himself small enough. Tony wished life worked that way, he really did. “It’s not like they have any evidence. If you were actually keeping me here against my will and, uh, and making me do  _ that _ ,” the kid blushed, “then it’d be  _ illegal _ . They can’t just accuse you of something like that without proof.”

“They know what I was like in the past. For them, that’s all the evidence they need.”

“That’s  _ different _ . I know you did a lot of stuff that wasn’t exactly awesome before you became Iron Man, and even a little after, but you haven’t been like that in years. You don’t even drink anymore. At least,  _ I’ve  _ never seen you drink. And you’ve been dating Pepper for, like, forever. Why would they think that you were… that  _ we  _ were doing… doing  _ that _ ?”

“It doesn’t matter if it makes sense, Pete. They just care that it’s sensational. And Iron Man having an illegal relationship with a minor? That’s the definition of sensational.”

Peter glared down at his lap, but his eyes were more sad than angry. “I hate it.”

“Yeah, me too.” He resisted the strange urge to wrap his arms around the kid. He was still tucked under his arm, he wouldn’t even have to move to do it, but something stopped him. “D’you see why I wanted to keep you away from all this shit? Nothing good ever comes of it.”

Suddenly, Peter’s gaze snapped away from his lap and onto Tony’s. His mouth was set, determined, but his eyes were full of quiet sincerity. “But you  _ can’t  _ keep me away from it. I mean, you do know that, right? You just… can’t.”

“I know, but you don’t understand how much I wish I could.”

Peter smiled, his usual carefree attitude already seeping back into his expression. “It’ll be alright. I’m adaptable.”

Goddamnit. Despite everything, the kid’s easy acceptance was infectious. He could feel a smile of his own tugging at his lips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Aren’t you?”

“Maybe not as much as I should be.”

“Well, maybe you need a good role model.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, are  _ you  _ trying to mentor  _ me  _ now?” He ruffled the kid’s hair good naturedly. “Yeah, no thanks. I think I prefer it when  _ you’re  _ looking up to  _ me _ .”

Peter’s eyes crinkled at the corners as his smile grew. “Yeah, me too.”


	5. November 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just FYI: I view this series as my "chill tf out and just write to write" project. So, if the writing seems a little more simplistic than some of my other bullshit, that's probably why.  
> Anyway, enjoy some more fluff from our boys. We both know it can't last.

The Tower had fallen into a routine.

Every morning, May and Pepper got up early and got ready for work. Pepper, of course, was usually just a few floors away, running SI and doing her best to put out the ever-present media fires surrounding the Peter’s-identity-leaking-to-the-entire-fucking-world situation. May went to the hospital, completely ignoring Tony’s promises that money wasn’t an issue, that she could sit back and let someone else manage the finances for a change. On top of that, she made a point of complaining about Tony’s assigned security detail on a daily basis. She said that it was interfering with her rounds, and while Tony sympathized, he refused to compromise on it.

He usually won the arguments by reminding her how devastated Peter would be if anything happened. It was a low blow, but it wasn’t a lie, and she knew that.

Whereas May and Pepper preferred early mornings, Tony learned very quickly that Peter was far more likely to work through the night then to wake up at sunrise. So, by the time the kid crawled out of bed, both women were long gone. Tony didn’t mind. On the nights when he  _ did  _ sleep, he preferred going to bed late and waking up even later anyway.

Somehow, he and the kid had started eating breakfast (did it count as breakfast if they ate it at lunchtime?) together. Well, okay, Tony sipped on a cup of coffee while Peter inhaled half his body weight in cereal, but it was breakfast, and it was together, and it was nice.

After they’d had some time to wake up, they’d go down to the lab and work through whatever material Peter had to learn for “school” for that day. It didn’t take very long, three or so hours on a light day and five at the max. Peter’d tested out of every single concept in his AP Calculus course (his expression when Tony told him had been truly priceless), so they usually spent an hour or two working through Linear Algebra, which the kid was picking up about as quickly as he’d expected him to. He guessed that they’d probably be onto Optimization Theory by December.

Their afternoons usually consisted of working in the lab (Tony found out pretty quickly that Peter knew next to nothing about cars, so he made it his personal mission to turn him into a proper little mechanic) or watching movies (they alternated between Tony and Peter picking, which resulted in an almost comical clash of generations and genres).

Once Pepper and May got home, they all had dinner together, which was… unusual. Tony hadn’t even had a family dinner when he was a kid, his parents had always eaten separately from him, but now he found himself doing mundane, domestic shit like passing plates of bread and listening to anecdotes about everyone’s days and exasperatedly telling Peter to  _ slow down, kid, the food’ll be there as long as you wanna eat it. _

After that, Peter usually went out patrolling for a couple of hours. He’d agreed, grudgingly so, to cut back just a little in the wake of the media frenzy, but Tony also understood that it was the kid’s only taste of freedom nowadays, so both he and May tried not to be too strict with him.

He always waited up for him, sitting on his favorite recliner in the living room, right by the balcony he used as an entrance. If May didn’t have an early morning shift the next day, she’d join him. Sometimes they’d sit in companionable silence, sometimes they’d talk about the news, or [], or, most often, they’d switch stories about Peter.

And so it came to be that Tony spent nearly every moment of his day, from his first cup of coffee to the moment he crawled into bed at night, with Peter Parker.

Today, though, he’d had some work to catch up on. It wasn’t anything complex, just giving the go-ahead on a few projects and double-checking the wording of a contract or two, but he hadn’t wanted to bore the kid with it, so once he finished up with Peter’s schoolwork, he set him on writing an essay and disappeared into his office.

The kid wandered in about an hour later, steps shuffling and unsure.

“Hey, Underoos.” He didn’t look up from the document he was scrolling through on his StarkPad, but he did watch the kid’s posture out of the corner of his eye. “How’s the essay going?”

“I’m, uh, I’m almost done.”

“Good boy.” He raised an eyebrow when Peter didn’t launch right into his usual long-winded exposition. “You need something?”

“I… F.R.I.D.A.Y. said you wouldn’t mind if I came in here.”

“She was right. I don’t mind.” He set his work aside, giving the kid his full attention. “What’s up?”

Peter shifted nervously. “I, uh, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Mhm. Go on.”

“Can I… I, just, well, there’s this movie. On Friday. It-It comes out on Friday, I mean. And I was supposed to go with Ned, and I know I’m not supposed to leave, but-”

He sighed, regretful. “No, Peter.”

“I’ll… I’ll go straight there and back.” Peter rushed to the edge of his desk, every inch of his expression pleading. It was an open honesty that was newly formed, a result of their rapidly expanding relationship, and Tony found that it was suddenly making him deeply uncomfortable, like something was expected of him that he would never be able to give. “Happy can take me, and I’ll be super careful, you’ll see-”

The guilt was clutching at his chest, and it made his response come out harsher than he’d intended. “ _ No _ , Peter.”

The kid shrank back, wounded. “Why not?”

He pushed away from his desk with heavy limbs and gripped Peter’s shoulders. He’d seen parents do that in movies, and it seemed to work for them. 

“It’s not safe, buddy.” That nickname always seemed to do the trick. “You have to understand-”

“ _ You _ can go out when you want.”

A wry smile flicked across his face. “When’s the last time I left the Tower, Peter? Do you know?”

That seemed to completely blindside the kid. He blinked, worked his jaw as his eyes darted up, down. Tony could see the wheels turning in his head.

“I… I don’t know.”

“It was when I met with your principle. Before that, when I picked you up from school. Before that? Weeks, Pete.  _ Weeks _ .”

A diluted panic fell over Peter’s face. He brought one of his hands up to clench at Tony’s wrist, desperate and pleading. “No, no,  _ no _ . I can’t stay here forever. I… I  _ can’t _ . I have… I have things to do. I don’t wanna live my life hiding away. I don’t… I don’t…”

“Shh, Pete. Breathe for me.” He rubbed his free hand up and down the kid’s arm, hoping it was reassuring. “Right now we’re in the thick of it. The attention will face, and then we can start making a few appearances, testing the waters. You’ll learn how to handle it, and then you can start going out with just Happy. It’ll take time, but we’ll find a way to dig you a life out of this, a  _ good  _ life. I promise.” He sighed. “It’s just… we have to be careful right now. And… And that means no movie. I’m sorry.”

The kid bit his lip, voice weak. “I’m never gonna be alone again, am I? Not really.”

“Never is a really long time, Pete.”

That must’ve been the wrong thing to say, although Tony had no idea why, because suddenly Peter’s lips were quivering and his voice was breaking and  _ oh _ , oh god, he was  _ crying _ .

“Shit.  _ Shit _ . Kid, hey. Hey. Don’t-Don’t do that. It’s gonna be alright. Shit.” He grabbed the kid’s shoulders and held him awkwardly at arms length, unsure exactly how he was meant to handle a  _ crying child. _ “Uh, F.R.I.D.A.Y.? Where’s May?”

“Mrs. Parker is still at work.”

“Pep?”

“At a meeting in Brooklyn.”

“Shit.”  _ Who thought it was a good idea to leave me alone with a child? _ “It’s just me, then?”

“Yes, Boss.”

“I-I’m fine.” Despite the attempt at reassurance, Peter just seemed to sob harder and harder. “I’m s-sorry. I’m so sorry. I-I’ll stop.”

“No, no.” He didn’t want Peter to feel like it was unmanly to cry. God knows that that mentality had done enough damage on him. “You’re, uh, you’re okay. Here,” he searched the room desperately, eyes landing on the couch in the corner and gently pulling the kid towards it, “we’ll, uh, we’ll just sit down here. And then we’ll have a chat about it. That’s a thing people do, right? They talk to kids when they cry?”

Peter didn’t answer. Instead, he just shook his head, swiping almost angrily at the tears on his cheeks. “I’m sorry. You-You shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Tony pulled them both down on the couch, then floundered. What was he supposed to do now? “It’s fine. It’s all fine. This is just gonna be a learning experience for the both of us.” He paused, flexing his hands against Peter’s shoulders nervously. “So, uh, what do adults do when you cry? Give me some pointers.”

More head shaking. Peter hugged his arms around his stomach, tears still slipping down his face no matter how hard he was trying to stop them. “It’s fine, I’m fine-”

“No, quit that. You’re not fine, and that’s  _ fine _ . This is, uh, this is overwhelming, and I’m having to do some shitty things to you. You’re allowed to be upset.” Slowly, he ran his hands down Peter’s arms, until his fingers were curled lightly around his elbows, and physically forced himself to relax. “Do you, god, fuck, this is so awkward, so don’t laugh.” Peter  _ didn’t  _ laugh, and that was somehow worse than if he had. “Do you want a hug?””

Yeah, that sounded just as clunky and creepy and  _ horrible  _ as he thought it would.

But the thing was, he remembered being Peter’s age. He remembered doing exactly what the kid was doing now: wrapping his arms around himself in a mockery of human contact, of human comfort, and wishing with everything he had that he had someone to hold him.

The kid gave him a wry smile, cutting off the thoughts before they could spiral. “Are we there yet?”

Wait, what? What did the kid-

Oh.

A memory, hazy from the lingering effects of a concussion and trauma, flickered through his mind.  _ It’s not a hug. I’m just grabbing the door for you. We’re not there yet.  _

Yeah, wow. Maybe not his finest moment.

“I mean, if you don’t wanna be there then I get it. Actually, that was… that was a weird thing to ask, wasn’t it? I didn’t mean to-”

And then Peter was wrapped around his chest.

It... was a different kind of hug than the ones he’d had with Pepper or Rhodey. There was none of the delicacy of Pepper’s embrace, none of the undertones of her hands on his waist, his arms, his back. But it was closer than the moments where Rhodey hugged him, a breath more intimate.

It was even different than the blurry memories he had of his mother’s embraces. Less being held and more  _ holding _ . 

He hadn’t realized that Pepper, Rhodey, his mom: they were always supporting  _ him _ . It was a transfer of responsibility in his favor.

Now  _ he  _ was the one responsible for comfort.

He… hadn't thought this through, had he?

He realized, a little belatedly, that while he was putting a ridiculous amount of thought  _ into  _ the hugging, he wasn’t actually  _ doing  _ any yet. Peter was tucked against his chest, but his arms were still hanging uselessly at his sides.

Okay. He could do this. First step: actually hug the kid. 

Easy, right?

He tried wrapping both arms around Peter’s back, then blanched because that felt  _ wrong _ . After a few seconds of awkward tinkering (which Peter, still crying, either ignored or didn’t notice), he settled on one arm wrapped tightly around the kid’s spine, holding him close, and the other resting lightly on the back of his head.

Now that he had  _ that  _ sorted, he let himself focus on the actual child in his arms.

The child that was, as far as he could tell, uncontrollably sobbing.

If he was being honest, it really wasn’t cute.

At some point, Peter had buried his face into his neck, and he could feel his hot tears dripping onto his collarbone. The kid’s breaths kept catching on the snot in his nose and, every once in a while, he made a little choking noise. All in all, it was pretty fucking gross.

Surprisingly, though, he… didn’t really care.

Gross things just didn’t seem that gross when Peter was involved. The want to comfort him eclipsed any repulsion he may have had.

He just  _ really  _ wanted the kid to stop crying. He’d do  _ anything  _ to make him stop crying.

“Okay,” he cooed, surprised by the pitch of his own voice. He tried to think about what he would’ve wanted to hear at Peter’s age, in those crushing moments of realization that he would never touch normal, that he would never live a life without scrutiny. “It’s okay, Pete. I’m… I’m gonna protect you.”

He hadn’t even realized that that was the promise he’d always craved until the words left his mouth.

God, that’s all he’d ever wanted. To be seen, to be sheltered, to have someone hold his hand and walk him through the maze. Howard had thought that forced independence would be character building, that Tony would sink or swim and that either option was fine with him.

Peter would never feel that way. Tony would never let him. He’d try not to swaddle him (although, god, he  _ really  _ wanted to), but he would never throw the kid to the wolves for the sake of some twisted learning experience. 

He threaded his fingers through Peter’s hair, slow and steady and lingering, like he was cementing the feelings in his chest with the motion.

_ I’m gonna protect you. I promise. _

“You don’t have to do that,” Peter whispered.

“I want to,” he whispered back.

Peter didn’t stop crying after that, but he did sound a little less desperate. He melted into Tony’s arms, shifting until he was curled up half in his lap, half on the couch cushion. He didn’t know how long they spent there, breaths and heartbeats syncing, but Tony  _ did  _ know that it was the longest physical contact he’d held with anyone other than Pepper in a long, long time.

He rubbed the kid’s back as his sobs slowed and settled. Even once he fell silent, Peter didn’t pull away, so Tony didn’t either.

“We feeling better?” He murmured, surprised by how  _ not weird  _ this whole situation felt.

Peter nodded against his neck, words thick. “Yeah. Thank you.”

“Of course.” He smiled, tenderness flowing through him. “It’s okay to cry, y’know. It’s not weak. I know society thinks that your masculinity is gonna disintegrate at the first sign of a tear, but that’s all bullshit, so don’t buy into it.”

He got a wet laugh in response. “Yeah, I know.”

“Good.”

They fell back into their gentle silence. It took Tony about fifteen minutes to realize that the reason Peter had grown loose and heavy against his chest was because he’d fallen asleep. For a second, he could barely believe it. The only person on Earth that made him feel secure enough to sleep beside was Pepper, and even that was difficult some nights.

He couldn’t imagine anyone trusting him enough to fall asleep in his arms, but here he was, cradling a sleeping child without any actual qualifications to do so.

He… He couldn’t move now, right? It was like if a cat curled up in your lap: you were just a monster if you shoved them off. And if anybody deserved a reprieve from the world, it was Peter.

Yeah, fuck his paperwork. He’d let the kid sleep.

He propped himself up against the arm of the couch, careful not to disturb the kid, and settled in for the long haul.

“Boss,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. pitched her voice down in response to the kid still napping in his arms, “Mrs. Parker and Miss Potts are home. They are inquiring after your whereabouts. Would you like me to tell them that you don’t want to be disturbed?”

He shook his head, running his fingers through the hair at the base of Peter’s neck. “No, it’s alright. Go ahead and tell them. Just… warn them to be quiet when they come in.”

“Of course.”

The door opened a few minutes later, and Pepper peaked in, confusion melting into adoration as her eyes flickered over the scene on the couch. She stepped in, May right behind her, and they both grinned at him shamelessly.

Pepper leaned against the wall while May knelt beside the couch, eye twinkling. “Well, this is sweet.” She ignored his glare. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah.” He suddenly felt a little self-conscious, although he knew it was ridiculous. “We had a little breakdown, but I handled it.”

“So I see.” She touched his arm, drawing his gaze up to hers. “Well done.”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, you would’ve done better.”

“I don’t know. It looks like you did just fine in your own.” She stood, shooting him a playful wink. “Told you that you’d get good at this.”

“Not sure I’m exactly  _ good  _ yet, but, yeah,” he rubbed his palm across Peter’s back, smiling down at the crown of his head, “I guess I’m getting there.”

“Mm.” May wandered back to Pepper. “Well. Have fun.”

His head snapped up. “Wait, wait. You’re just gonna leave me here?”

May laughed, light and unbothered. “Well, it looks like you have the situation handled.”

Pepper nodded, opening the door and shooting a grin back at him before she left. “Don’t worry, honey, we’ll bring you some dinner.”

Peter unconsciously nuzzled into his neck at the commotion, and he squeezed the back of the kid’s neck to quiet him even as he put on a face of indignance. “Oi, wait-”

The door clicked shut, leaving him stranded with a sleeping kid and no one else to hand him off to.

He chose not to linger on the fact that he wasn’t even a little upset.


	6. November 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who knew the first thing I would finish after watching Endgame was this chapter, huh?  
> Little request: Please don't put Endgame spoilers in the comments! I will delete any spoilers, as much as I'll hate to do it! I want everyone to be able to read this without fear. Oh, and I promise not to spoil anything, either. This fic is entirely out of the normal MCU timeline, so no fears there!  
> As always, y'all are the best and I love you.

He’d been dreading this morning all week.

When Pepper had first brought up the idea of adding Peter and May to their kidnapping and ransom insurance, he’d balked. It made the whole thing too real, too ever-present a threat. 

The thought of Peter being in danger wasn’t new, of course. He was a goddamn superhero.  _ Danger  _ was sort of in the job description. But Tony’s mind had created a distinction between  _ Spider-Man  _ being in danger and  _ Peter Parker  _ being in danger. Spider-Man was in danger because he couldn’t stand the idea of sitting on the sidelines when he could be out on the streets, helping his neighborhood. Spider-Man was in danger because he was good, and kind, and brave. Spider-Man was in danger because he  _ chose  _ to be in danger, because he picked that life for himself.

Peter Parker was in danger because he knew Tony Stark.

He didn’t want to have to acknowledge that fact, but it was getting harder and harder to dance around it. Peter would never be safe again. People would always be watching him, following him, waiting. The media would exploit him, sexualize him, tear him apart just to build him back up. His classmates would stare at him, whisper behind his back, try to be his friend just to climb the social ladder.

And there were people out there, terrible, impossibly cruel people, who would see him as an  _ opportunity _ . An easy target. A sure-fire way to get under Tony Stark’s skin.

And so when Pepper had told him, in quiet, please-don’t-have-a-panic-attack-over-this tones, that Peter and May would both need ransom training, he’d balked, faltered, then nodded.

Both he and Happy were qualified to do it. He’d toyed with the idea of training them both together, but then he’d remembered exactly what the content of the curriculum consisted of, and he settled on handling Peter’s training himself and handing May off to Happy.

He doubted Peter wanted to hear him explain to May what to do if a captor held a knife to her throat, or drugged her, or did any of the other millions of shitty things assholes like that might try.

Happy had sectioned off one of the Tower’s employee gyms for the day for May’s session, and Tony took Peter to the training facility that used to be reserved for the Avengers. Nowadays, the kid was the only superhero around to use it.

The teenager didn’t seem to fully comprehend the seriousness of what they were going to be discussing. He was jumping around, all chatter and pent-up excitement, asking Tony a million questions and just being his usual, sun-bright self.

He sat down on one of the training mats and crossed his legs, whistling to get the kid’s attention. “Hey. Quit bouncing off the walls and c’mere.”

Peter bounded over and plopped down in front of him. He crossed his legs too, a mirror of Tony’s position, and sat close enough that their knees brushed. “Yeah, right, cool. I’m here.”

“So I see.” He studied the kid silently for a few moments. “Tell me what we’re here to do.”

Peter’s face scrunched up. “How to escape if I get kidnapped?”

He snorted. “Yes and no.” A pause. He couldn’t tell if it was for effect, or if he was just biding his time. “Alright. I’m about to tell you the golden rule of all this. Are you ready?”

The kid nodded, wide-eyed and eager. “Yes.”

“Good. Listen up.” He leaned forward, careful to hold Peter’s gaze. “First rule of K&R training? Don’t get kidnapped.”

The kid’s face deflated, and he laughed. “Oh,  _ c’mon _ , Mister Stark. You’ve gotta be kidding me. That’s not a rule.”

“Oh, but it is.” He set a hand on Peter’s knee. “I never want you to have to use  _ any  _ of these skills, do you understand? There may be a part of you that thinks it’d be cool, that it’d be a little like an adventure, but it  _ isn’t _ . It isn’t heroic. It isn’t a game. It’s life and death.”

“I don’t think it’s cool,” Peter whispered, face about as solemn as he’d ever seen it, “I promise, I don’t.”

“I know, but I need to be sure you understand.”

“I do, I promise.”

“Alright. Good.” He leaned back. “So, how do you think you avoid being kidnapped?”

“Uh,” Peter paused, obviously taking the question very seriously, then grinned, “don’t talk to strangers?”

“Well, it’s a good start.” He smothered the urge to emulate Peter’s easy attitude. He had to be serious, had to impress upon the kid the importance of what he was about to learn. “Your number one rule is to stay sharp. Don’t get distracted by your phone, or music, or whatever else. When you’re in public, you have to be on your guard. If something feels off, you hit the emergency button on your watch ASAP and get to a public place.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “You say this like you’re ever gonna let me go anywhere alone.”

That stung. He knew the kid hadn’t meant it to, but it did. “Despite what you think, I do acknowledge that I can’t keep you here forever, Pete. You’ll have to go out on your own eventually. I just… I want you to be prepared.”

The kid’s eyes softened. “I know. But I’m not just a random teenager, Mister Stark. I’m  _ Spider-Man _ .”

“Yeah, we need to talk about that, too.” He caught the kid anxiously picking at the seams of his jeans, and gently stilled his hand. “You need to understand something. And this is important,” he resisted the urge to roll his eyes at himself. He kept saying that  _ everything  _ was important, “just because you’re Spider-Man doesn’t mean you’re invincible. It doesn’t mean that they won’t still manage to grab you, even if you cave and use your powers. Remember: they’re not just kidnapping Peter Parker from Queens. They’re kidnapping  _ Tony Stark’s _ Peter Parker from Queens. They’ll expect you to know self-defense, they’ll expect you to have ways to protect yourself. If they go for you, they might even be prepared to take on the suit. You can’t rely on your powers,” he took a breath, “and if you reveal them, you might get yourself locked in an even more dangerous situation. You’re much safer if they think you’re a vulnerable kid, not a superhero.”

Peter tilted his head to the side, considering the implications of the speech. “So you want me to just… let them take me?”

“If it comes to it, yes.”

The kid reacted just about how Tony expected him to. He jerked back, eyes widening, incredulous. “You’re kidding me. You want me to  _ let  _ someone kidnap me?”

“ _ Peter _ ,” he grabbed hold of his exasperation and smothered it, “think about this logically. Why would someone kidnap Peter Parker?”

“Because of you?”

“Yes, but  _ why _ ?”

Realization dawned on Peter’s face. “For money.”

“Exactly. Ransom kidnappings are stressful to negotiate, but they  _ can  _ be negotiated. They won’t hurt you if you don’t fight them. You’re  _ valuable _ . You’re their ticket out of prison  _ and  _ to a small fortune. If you play along, your chances of survival skyrocket.”

“But you won’t give them the money, right?”

He smiled uncomfortably. “To bring you home safe? Of course I would. I’ve got lots of money, but only one of you.” Oh, god. Too sappy. He needed to divert. “Besides, I don’t like it when people take my stuff. I’m territorial like that.”

Peter gnawed on his lip, eyes looking anywhere but Tony’s face. “But what if they ask for like… a lot of money?”

“Then they’ll get a lot of money.”

“Really?” It hurt that Peter looked so shocked. “You’d… You’d just pay someone to keep me safe?”

_ I’d do a lot more than that. _

“Of course I would.” He patted the kid’s knee. “So, to recap: don’t get kidnapped, but if you do, no Spider-Man, except for in a few situations.”

“What situations?”

“I’m getting there.” He left his hand on Peter’s leg, squeezed it softly. “If your captors show you their face, get the hell out of there, whatever means necessary.”

“Why?”

Damn it. He’d hoped the kid wouldn’t ask that.

Deep breath. “Because if they show you their face, they don’t have any plans of letting you go.”

Peter’s brow furrowed. “What, they’d just keep me locked up forever?”

He swallowed, forcing his voice to stay steady. These were things Peter needed to know, things Tony needed to scare into him. It didn’t matter if it made him uncomfortable, or if he didn’t want to do it. It might save his life, one day. It was necessary. It was worth it.

“Or they’d kill you.”

“Oh.” The kid blinked a few times. “Yeah, that… that makes sense.”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Other exceptions to the no Spider-Man rule: if they hurt you or torture you, get out right away. If you hear them talking about selling or trading you, run like hell. If it becomes obvious that your life is in danger, your identity becomes secondary.”

“But if it’s ransom, I should, what, just stay put?”

“That’s exactly what you should do. Just stay put until I come to get you.”

“I just have to  _ sit there?” _

Tony grinned at the prospect of human ball of energy Peter Parker actually sitting around and doing nothing. Even now, the kid was unravelling the seams of his jeans and tapping a random rhythm against the training mat.  _ Stationary _ wasn't really a word in his vocabulary.

“Not exactly. There are things you can do to help.”

_ That  _ brightened the kid up. “Yeah? What?”

He smirked. “It’s right up your alley, actually. Make your captors fall in love with you.”

The words registered, and Peter glared. “I hate you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Tony made a point of reaching forward and flicking him in the ear. “But seriously. If you can create a connection with them, then it’s way more likely that they won’t hurt you.”  _ Or kill you.  _ “Talk about yourself, about Star Wars, about their family. Remind them that you’re a human being, just like they are.”

Peter didn’t respond. The kid’s eyes were trained down at his knees, hands clenched in fists against the rubber mat.

“Hey,” he murmured, and the tone made Peter glance up at him instantly. He felt a smug rush of satisfaction at that. “What’s wrong? You were bouncing off the walls just four seconds ago.”

“I dunno. I just started thinking about it, I guess. ‘Cause, like, May’s doing this too, right? What if… What is something happens to-”

“Let me stop you right there.” He held up his hand. “Nothing is gonna happen to either of you, y’hear me? Remember what I said earlier? There isn’t anything in the world that’ll stop me from bringing you two home safe. And so far, I haven’t met a problem I can’t solve.”

Trust sparked up in Peter’s eyes, and a little smile wormed its way across his face. “Yeah, I know.”

“So there you go then.” He heaved himself off the mat and suppressed a groan as his joints ached. “Alright, then. Enough bemoaning on about it. Wanna get hands on?”

Peter bounced up with more speed than Tony could ever imagine having. “Yeah!”

They spent the rest of the afternoon running through a handful of scenarios, going over protocols and formulas for different situations. They practiced picking the locks on handcuffs, simple self-defense that Peter could use without giving away his spidey powers, even how to kick out a tail light in case the kid got thrown in a trunk.

In all honesty, Peter seemed like he was having the time of his life.

Tony was just hoping with every atom in his body that everything they were going through was a waste of time. That Peter would never have to face these things without Tony murmuring steady instructions at his side. That this could stay a fun exercise, that the kid could keep on remembering it as a lighthearted afternoon with his mentor, and that it would never develop into something more.

_ Please let it stay simple. Please. _

\--

Once they’d finished, he’d sent Peter to his room with a suggestion to call Ned, and retreated into his lab to collect himself. He wasn’t even down there an hour before a voice startled him out of his work.

“Tony?” May was leaning against the lab’s doorframe, eyes roving over the space with interest. She’d never been down here before, although it’s where Peter spent most of his days. “I’m sorry to intrude, but F.R.I.D.A.Y. said you were down here and wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t.” He spun his chair and gestured to a bench at his right. “Please, sit. I’d offer you coffee, but Dumm-E here,” he jerked a thumb at the robot, “broke the machine.”

She laughed, picking her way through the lab’s clutter until she reached the bench and sat. “Peter talks about him a lot. He thinks he’s sweet.”

“Yeah, well, Dumm-E loves him, so of course he’d think that.”

Her eyes glittered. “He’s got that effect on people.”

“Sure does,” he muttered, fully aware of the knowing look she was giving him. “So, what do you need? Everything alright at work?”

“Besides the security team that I  _ don’t need _ ?” She raised her hand before he could defend himself. “Easy. That’s not what I’m here about.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Am I about to be yelled at?”

“No, not at all. It’s… more of a favor, really.”

Oh. Well that was a pleasant surprise. “Shoot.”

“I… I know you did Peter’s ransom training today, and I know you know that Happy did mine.”

“Mhm.”

“It… got me thinking. We shouldn’t pretend that both Peter and I don’t have targets on our backs now. There’s a reason he’s not at school, and it goes beyond the discomfort of the media scrutiny, doesn’t it?”

He nodded, reluctant but honest. “Yes, it does. But I promise you: I will do everything in my power to keep him safe. To keep  _ you  _ safe.”

She gave him a sad smile. “I don’t doubt that, Tony. I don’t doubt it for a second. But you’re not infallible, and no security measure is foolproof. We need to have a plan. What if something happens to me? What will happen to Peter?”

He stiffened. “Nothing bad, I can assure you.”

“I believe you, I do, but… I’d feel better if we had all the legal aspects of that settled.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “It’s not just about planning for the worst case scenario, either. I don’t know anything about PR. Pepper was showing me a dozen different things I should be signing and handling as Peter’s legal guardian earlier, and I just… I don’t know what I’m doing. I never thought I’d be raising a child in this kind of environment. I don’t know how to make these decisions, but right now, I’m the only one with the legal power to do it. I don’t want to screw it up.”

“You won’t screw it up,” he reassured. “We’re going to help you. I have lawyers, advisors, anything you need.”

“Maybe, but they don’t know Peter. They don’t know what’s best for  _ him _ .” Their gazes met. “But you do.”

He blinked. “I-I’m not sure-”

She cut him off. “I want you to be his guardian,” she blurted.

For a second, all they did was stare at each other.

“I mean it,” she added softly. “Obviously, we’ll… we’ll share it. But I… I can’t do this alone. I know I can’t.  _ You  _ know I can’t.” She smiled, a little bitter. “It takes a village, and all that. And you  _ love him _ , Tony. I see it in your eyes when you look at him. I know that if anybody can help him through this, if anybody should get him in case something happens to me, it has to be you.”

Slowly, he coaxed his tongue into motion. “I… May, I don’t know how to be a parent.”

“Neither did I, when I first got him. I learned. So will you. You’re  _ already  _ learning, and you’re doing a phenomenal job. I wouldn’t have asked you to do this if you weren’t.”

“But I don’t… I don’t  _ parent  _ him. I just make him breakfast, shove some schoolwork at him, put on a movie, that kind of shit. It’s not… It’s not  _ parenting _ .”

May laughed. “Tony, that’s exactly what parenting is.”

“There’s… There’s gotta be more to it.”

“There really isn’t. I know it feels like it, but… he’s a teenager, Tony, not an infant. All you really have to do is be there for him. Point him in the right direction and nudge him back on the right path when he starts to get lost.” She reached forward and set her hand on his knee, the same gesture he’d used on Peter earlier. “He trusts you, and you love him. At the end of the day, that’s all you really need in your toolbox.”

Something rose up in him, a strange kind of longing. A longing he hadn’t felt since he’d shoved it down at MIT. The want for a family, to extend his legacy beyond weapons and smartphones and new forms of energy.

The want for something  _ more _ .

“Are you sure?” He whispered. Delicate. Unsure.

“I wouldn’t have asked you if I wasn’t.”

“Shouldn’t we ask him?”

“Of course. But I wanted your agreement first.” She tilted her head, studied him. “Do I have it?”

A swallow. “Is Pepper okay with it?”

“It was partly Pepper’s idea.”

“Then… then yeah.” He sucked in a breath. “Yeah, you have it.”

“Well, then, Mister Stark,” May offered her hand to him with a grin, “I guess we’re in this one together.”

He took her hand, shook it slowly. “So it seems we are, Miss Parker.”

_ God, what am I doing? _


	7. November 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a final tomorrow. Guess what I did instead of studying?  
> I have no regrets.

Tony was a little ashamed of how nervous he was to propose the joint guardianship to Peter and, frankly, the reason behind the anxiety just made him feel even worse. 

He, Tony Stark,  _ Iron Man _ , found himself terrified,  _ literally  _ quaking-in-his-boots afraid, that the kid would outright reject him.

The worst part of the whole thing was that Tony wouldn’t even blame him if he did.  _ He  _ certainly wouldn’t want Tony Stark legally responsible for him, even if the responsibility  _ was  _ being shared by someone as grounded as May. 

A part of him, the part of him that preened at the idea of helping raise the kid, desperately wanted Peter to want him back. He didn’t know what he could do if he didn’t, how he would tolerate that emotional blow.

May, of course, just rolled her eyes when he vocalized his concerns.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Tony.” She laughed, bright and easy. “He may be a little shocked, apprehensive, even, but he isn’t going to _ reject _ you.”

They were sitting in the living room, waiting for Peter to wander out for breakfast. May had taken the day off of work solely for this conversation, this moment. Tony could hear his heartbeat in his ears, every breath straining in his chest. He kept having to wipe the palms of his hands on his jeans, shaky and sweaty and just generally gross.

He couldn’t believe that this is what even the inkling of parenthood had reduced him to.

“G’morning, Mister Stark.” Peter wandered into the living room with a yawn already on his lips, drifting sideways, not even close to fully awake. “D’we have bacon?”

“We sure do, baby.” May stood, and Peter blinked in surprise. “Do you want me to grab you some?”

“Oh. Hi, May.” The kid squinted at her, visibly confused. “What’re you doing here?”

“Not happy to see me?” She quipped, smile wide.

“No, no!” Peter raised his hands in surrender, gaze darting curiously between Tony and May, obviously trying to untangle the equation. “No, I mean, of course I’m happy! It’s just… you usually have work now, right? Unless F.R.I.D.A.Y. gave me the wrong time and I woke up, like, super early?”

“You did not, Peter,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. offered, “it is currently 11:56 am.”

“Oh.”

May laughed, standing up and heading to the kitchen. “I took today off so that the three of us could have a chat. Do you still want that bacon?”

Peter looked at Tony and raised his eyebrows questioningly. Tony shrugged, deferring the unspoken question.

The kid didn’t look away from Tony when he spoke, shouting awkwardly over his shoulder. “Uh, yeah. Thanks, May.”

“Of course, honey. You want anything else? Eggs? Waffles?”

“I, uh,” Tony was vaguely wondering if Peter’s stare was actually burning through him, or if he was just imagining it, “eggs would be nice.”

“Scrambled with cheese?”

“Yes please.”

As soon as the shouted conversation ended, Tony held out his arm and awkwardly patted the cushion beside him.

“C’mere, Pete,” he tried to offer the kid a reassuring smile, “how’re you doing?”

He could've actually kicked himself. What a dumb thing to ask. God, he was a mess.

Still, Peter wandered over and slowly sat beside him. After a few seconds of both of them stewing, fidgeting nervously while trying to not let the other know that they were fidgeting nervously, the kid finally spoke.

“Am I in trouble?”

“What?” He balked. “No, no. You’re not even a little bit in trouble, kid.” He narrowed his eyes. “Wait, why? Have you done something that warrants you getting in trouble?”

“No!” In all honesty, it was a little funny, the two of them dancing around each other like this. Later, Tony imagined that they might be able to laugh about it. “I just… I dunno. Both of you sitting me down for a talk is a little… terrifying?”

He snorted.  _ Yeah, kid, tell me about it. _

“Yeah, I bet, but it’s all fine. You’re not in trouble, and it’s nothing bad. It’s just… serious.”

“Is it about the press?”

He went to nod, then stopped and shrugged instead. “In a way, I suppose. Your aunt will go into it more when she gets back. She’s better at this kind of stuff than I am.”

Peter offered him a tentative smile. “For what it’s worth, Mister Stark, I think you’re getting a lot better.”

“At what?”

The kid gestured between them vaguely. “ _ This _ . Y’know, talking about stuff.”

Warmth spread throughout his chest.  _ Maybe May’s right, maybe he will be okay with this. _ “You think?”

“I mean, yeah.” Peter picked at the edge of the couch cushion. Tony briefly considered telling him off, then discarded the thought. Even if the kid  _ did  _ tear it, he could just buy a replacement. “Practice makes perfect, right?”

A hint of humor sparked inside him, and Tony was surprised by how  _ not weirded out _ he was by how emotional the kid was making him feel. “Oh, so are you saying that we should have these conversations more often?”

“No, no.” Peter glared. “That is definitely  _ not _ what I said, I just meant that-”

May interrupted the kid’s desperate attempt at backtracking, walking in from the kitchen with a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs in one hand and a glass of apple juice in the other.

“Here you go, honey.” She set the plate in Peter’s lap and the glass on the coffee table, just within his reach. Then, she sat on his other side, effectively hemming him in between her and Tony. “Do you wanna eat first, then talk?”

“I, uh, I’d rather get it over with now, actually.”

May rolled her eyes. “Relax, Peter. It’s nothing bad.”

The kid’s eyes narrowed, gaze darting calculatingly between the two adults. “That’s what Tony said.”

“And he’s  _ right _ .” May brushed Peter’s bangs off of his face and met Tony’s gaze over the top of his head. “See, Tony and I have come up with an idea, but we want your permission before we go through with it.”

The kid’s head tilted, considering, then glanced back to Tony. “What kind of idea?”

May saved him from speaking by jumping right in with her answer. “You know that Ben and I adopted you after your parents passed.”

Peter blinked. Obviously, that hadn’t been the turn he’d been expecting the conversation to take. “Yeah, duh.”

“And now that he’s…” May swallowed, shaking her head as if to dissipate the pain, “and now that he’s  _ gone _ , I’m the only legal guardian you have.”

“Yeah,” Peter said slowly, “I mean, I’ve never really thought about it like that before, but, yeah.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. We didn’t have anybody else, Peter. I don’t even have anybody listed on my will to take you in if… if something happens to me.”

Peter tensed all at once. “Nothing’s gonna happen to you, Aunt May.”

It kinda hurt Tony’s heart that it sounded way more like a plea than a promise.

May must’ve had a similar reaction, because she rushed to cup Peter’s face, brushing a thumb over his cheek. “Of course not, baby, but things are a little more complicated now.”

The kid’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”

Tony spoke for the first time since the conversation began. “It’s not your fault, kid.”

May nodded. “Tony’s right, Peter. It’s not even a little bit your fault, but it  _ is  _ something we’re going to have to adjust to. And that’s where Tony and my idea comes in.”

“Are you actually gonna tell me what it is, now?” Tony had to smother a smile at the kid’s bluntness. “Cause, like, the suspense is killing me here.”

May watched Peter carefully. “Did you know that New York has a law that allows second parent adoption?”

It was a clever way to introduce it, and Tony instantly felt his respect for May grow. She knew her kid, that was for sure. It was much easier to give Peter the pieces and let him find his way to the conclusion on his own, rather than shove it in his face and startle him with it.

And, of course, it only took the kid a handful of seconds to complete the puzzle.

“Wait,” this time, Peter physically turned his entire body around to face him, eyes wide, “you’re going to  _ adopt  _ me?”

He raised his hands in a form of surrender, heart pounding. “Not, uh, not exactly. It’ll just be legal guardianship at first.” He winced at how lame the distinction must’ve sounded to a 16-year-old kid. “And only if you’re okay with it. That’s why we’re asking, Pete. We won’t do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

_ You can say no. I’ll understand, better than I think I really want to. _

Peter swivelled back to May. “But  _ eventually  _ it’ll be adoption?”

“Yes, baby.”

Peter seemed to stall on that realization for a few moments before plowing forward again. “Don’t you… Don’t you have to be married for that?”

“No,” May smiled a little, shaking her head, “we don’t.”

“May’ll still be calling the shots, too,” Tony offered. “I don’t have any plans to usurp her. It’s just… a precaution.”

“Exactly. And this way, Tony can delve into all the legal aspects of the press situation without getting my written consent every other second. He’ll be able to access your medical records and give procedure permissions in case, god forbid, anything happens on patrol when I’m on shift.” May’s voice softened, and she cupped the side of Peter’s jaw, tilting his face up until their eyes locked. “You’ll have a safety net, and I’ll sleep a lot easier at night knowing that you have more than just me in your corner.”

Slowly, Peter twisted back to stare at Tony. His eyes were soft and open, seeking something that Tony couldn’t quite identify. “Are you sure? Do you… Do you actually wanna do this? It’s… It’s a lot to ask.”

He forced himself to relax, take a breath. 

_ Frankly, Peter, I’m not sure that I should, _ he thought,  _ but I want to, kid. God, I really, really want to. _

When he finally spoke, he poured as much conviction into the answer as he could. “Of course I’m sure, Pete. I never do anything unless I’m sure.”

The kid swallowed. “Then okay.”

Tony jolted in surprise. May just looked like that was the answer she’d been expecting all along.

“Nothing’s gonna change, buddy,” he rushed to reassure, gaze bouncing between May and the kid. “It’s… everything’s gonna stay the same as far as you’re concerned, although there might be some stuff for you to sign, maybe an interview with a lawyer or two. You don’t have to worry about-”

“Mister Stark,” Peter’s mouth was turned up just slightly at the corners, obviously amused, “I already said okay.”

“I, uh, right.” There were very few moments in Tony Stark’s life when he felt stupid, or out of his depth, but this was one of them. This was definitely one of them. “Well, yeah. I just… you know, wanted to make sure you knew.”

May rolled her eyes. “Well, now that  _ that’s  _ settled,” she stood, “Peter, eat your breakfast. Tony,” she met his eyes, winked as if to say  _ see? I told you everything would work out _ , “what would you like to eat?”

“I don’t eat breakfast,” he answered immediately, still a little stupefied by how easily Peter had accepted the bombshell, how easily he had accepted  _ him _ .

“He likes waffles,” Peter chimed in around a mouthful of bacon, “but they have to be, like, smothered with syrup. And he needs more coffee or he’ll start getting grumpy.”

“ _ Oi _ ,” he said, no heat behind the chastisement. “I do not get  _ grumpy _ .”

May laughed, disappearing into the kitchen. “One syrup-smeared waffle and a cup of coffee coming right up. Pete, you want a waffle too?”

“Yes, please!”

For a second, Tony got lost in soaking up the moment. Here he was, sitting on the couch, Peter’s legs pressed up against his, the smell of cooking wafting in from the kitchen. Once the paperwork went through, he’d have an honest-to-god kid. Not just any kid, either. This kid. The only kid in the entire universe that Tony could ever want.

It was, of course, this exact kid that jolted him out of his thoughts.

“Hey, Mister Stark?”

He glanced at the teenager, feeling himself soften subconsciously the second his eyes fell into Peter’s. “Yeah, bud?”

Peter held out his plate. “D’you want a slice of my bacon? It’s really good.”

He laughed. “Sure.” He stole a slice, tore it in half, and popped a piece into his mouth. “Thanks, Pete.”

_ I’m going to have a kid. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: second-parent adoption is a very real thing in New York, and while it's usually used by same-sex couples, you can go through the process with platonic co-parents as well. I'll be delving into the process a little bit in coming chapters, but I should probably mention that I'm going to bypass some of the steps and streamline the whole thing, solely for the sake of not confusing the hell out of you and myself. Oh, and, as usual, I might dramatize is just... just a bit. C'mon, do y'all _not_ wanna see Tony and Peter have to have an interview with a social worker proving that they actually like each other? Because I do.  
> As usual, thank you so much for reading! I love each and every one of you with all my heart.


	8. December 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally going to have the social worker interview in it, but when I was writing it everything felt wrong, so I've set it aside. I don't know if I'll rework it or just leave it as a peripheral thing, but I thought I'd just give y'all that little update on things.  
> Otherwise, I'm so sorry that you had to wait almost a month for this, and I'm sorry that these chapters are so short. I'll try to get the next one out sooner.

It was 10:00 o'clock at night when Peter came barging into his room.

“Y’know,” he drawled, not looking up from his StarkPad, “you’re lucky that Pepper’s in Boston, or you could’ve found yourself getting an eyeful of something you really don’t want to see.”

“Uh, first of all,  _ ew _ .” Peter plopped down on the bed beside him and plucked the StarkPad out of his hands, dropping it inelegantly onto the side table, only to replace it with his laptop, pulled up to the login screen. “Second of all, I had F.R.I.D.A.Y. check that you weren’t busy before I came in, so  _ there _ .”

“So  _ there _ ,” he parroted back, smiling softly. It was a little shocking, how quickly they fell into this dynamic now. Maybe he should’ve expected it, after all the time they’d spent living in each other’s pockets, but it still caught him a little off guard every single time.

Peter was easy. Peter made  _ sense _ . Tony had never thought he’d say that, about a child, but it was true. They fit together surprisingly well. Both May and Pepper kept making offhand comments about it, and instead of being entirely embarrassed, he often found himself genuinely touched. He was  _ proud  _ of the fact that he got along so well with Peter. And although the thought of voicing it out loud made his stomach twist with emotional overload, their relationship had pretty quickly become one of the most treasured pieces of his life.

Oh, god. Since when had Tony’s best friend become a sixteen-year-old  _ child _ ?

“Anyway,” he said, letting himself fall back into the present: his bedroom, the gentle glow of the laptop screen, and the looseness of Peter’s body language, “wanna tell me why you’re barging into my room in the middle of the night?”

“It’s, like, 10:00 o’clock. That’s early.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. Duh.” Peter reached over his lap, typed in his computer’s password, and Tony was briefly blinded by the brilliant white of Google’s homepage. “So, don’t be mad, but I may or may not have overridden your protocols to stop me from reading the news.”

He groaned, exasperated. “ _ Peter _ .”

“Listen, I was  _ curious- _ ”

He was shaking his head before the kid could even start his defense. “You know, sometimes it feels like you’re determined to undermine me every time I do something to protect you.”

“I don’t mean to undermine you,” Peter said, his voice surprisingly sincere. “Don’t be so dramatic. I just… I wanted to know.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re talking about me?” For some reason, that seemed to be the only explanation Peter could offer. “But, none of that matters, because I looked, and I noticed something.”

“Is it that the press are scumbags?”

“Uh, no?” Of course that wasn’t what Peter noticed, as innocent and forgiving as he was. “And be careful, Mister Stark, a free press is vital to the stability of a modern-day democracy.”

Tony snorted. God, this kid was ridiculous. “Yeah? What textbook told you that?”

“MJ.”

“Oh, the scary girl that you have that massive crush on?”

“I  _ do not  _ have a… a  _ crush  _ on MJ.”

Peter was flustered enough that Tony knew his point had already been made, so he let him off the hook. “Sure, sure. I believe you.” He held his hands up in surrender. “Just finish your story, bud.”

The kid glared, but relented with only a tiny huff. “Whenever something wonky happens with SI, or with the Avengers, you and Pepper, like, jump on the press stuff. You make statements, hold press conferences. You’re, like, you’re known for it.”

He quirked up an eyebrow in good humor. “ _ I am Iron Man _ ?”

Something sweet and nostalgic sparked in Peter’s eyes at the reference. “Yeah, exactly.”

“And?”

“And you haven’t done that this time.” Huh. Interesting that the kid noticed that. Very clever synthesis skills, really. Tony would be lying if he said that he wasn’t a little proud. “You’ve been silent. SI’s barely released  _ anything  _ about it, and none of the press releases that they  _ have  _ made really mention you at all, at least not outside of the usual cookie cutter stuff.”

He inclined his head. “Are you asking me why I haven’t spoken out?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m asking.”

He thought about his explanation. He had to be honest, obviously. He didn’t want to lie to the kid, and he deserved the truth.

“All those other incidents, the ones you’re referring to,” he started, “they’re… less complicated than this. They were usually  _ my  _ shitstorms, for one, and I was the only person who would really have to deal with the aftermath. The Avengers were… different. We’d all talk before any press conferences, so I’d go to the cameras with a list of things to address and things to keep quiet about. But this, Pete? Suddenly, it isn’t just my narrative anymore. This is  _ your  _ life. Your personal, private life. You didn’t sign up for this shit like I did, or like the rest of the team. I’m... well, I just don’t wanna screw it up any worse than I already have.”

He didn’t want to screw  _ Peter  _ up any worse than he already had, either, but that was one truth that he wasn’t entirely ready to vocalize. Not yet.

“Why do you keep talking like this is all your fault?” Peter asked, incredulous. “It  _ isn’t _ . It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really, unless you wanna blame the hacker.”

“Oh,” he snarled, “I  _ do  _ blame the hacker.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Then it’s the  _ hacker’s  _ fault, and not yours.” The kid looked genuinely confused, then, like Tony was a puzzle that he just couldn’t solve. “So... why won’t you say something?”

“Because of exactly what I just said. Before, if I messed something up, nothing that really mattered would get hurt. But now? Now you could get hurt, and I don’t...” 

_ I don’t know if I could handle that _ .

He sighed. “I don’t feel like it’s my right to play with your reputation like that.”

A mischievous smile unfurled across the kid’s face, and Tony couldn't help but feel like he’d just accidentally opened a can of worms that  _ definitely  _ should’ve stayed closed. “You said that it isn’t your narrative. So, that means it’s mine, right?”

He cocked his head to the side, examining the kid’s expression. “Yes,” he said slowly.

That seemed to be the answer Peter had been hoping for, because it propelled him forward. “Then let me  _ help you  _ control it. You’re the one who said it’s my story now, too. Let me tell it.”

“You have a plan in that little head of yours, don’t you?”

Peter’s grin only widened. “I do. And it starts with this: your social media presence sucks.”

Sometimes, this kid made connections and leaps that left Tony’s head spinning. He was a little afraid that, as the years dragged on, he might end up being left in the dust. 

Although, then again, he supposed that was just the circle of life. What a frightening thought to realize that he was on the fading end of the spectrum.

He hid the surprisingly morbid realization behind a mask of indignation. “Uh,  _ excuse  _ you-”

“It does!” Peter hastily reached back for his laptop, pulling up a browser full of Tony’s various social media accounts. “Your Twitter is just a bunch of retweets from the Stark Industries account, your Instagram has  _ three posts _ , all of which are SI related, and you don’t even  _ have  _ a Snapchat.”

“I have a Facebook.”

Peter made a face. “Yeah. Ew.”

“Ew?” He threw his hands up. “I thought you young people loved Facebook.”

“Oh, god,” the kid faked a face of pure horror, “it’s even worse than I thought. I don’t know if I can salvage you.”

“Haha, you’re so funny,” he drawled. “But seriously, kid, what does Instagram have anything to do with this?”

“I’ve been thinking about it. About… About ways for us to show them who were are, and not who they  _ think  _ we are.”

He tried not to let any bite creep into his words. “Peter, they don’t care about who we actually are. They’ll construct your identity for you, and that’s who you’ll be until they lose interest.”

“ _ No _ ,” the kid said, and he had such a forceful tone that Tony found himself stunned into silence. “I… I’m sorry, Mister Stark, but I don’t think you’re right.” He shifted on the bed, gnawing on his lip as he seemed to churn through his argument. “Have you ever even given them a chance to see who you really are? Have you ever done  _ anything  _ besides play the role that they invented for you?”

And, well,  _ no _ . This particular fact wasn’t one that was new, but it tended to be something that he chose not to dwell on. Tony had never had much of a want to expose his true identity to the press. Why would he? They’d just shred it like they’d shredded every other persona he’d tried. This way, at least, some part of him stayed sheltered, protected,  _ whole _ .

But… he didn’t want Peter to live this way, and he certainly didn’t want the kid to feel like that was his only choice, so he didn’t voice any of that. Instead, he just shook his head, tired and defeated.

“No, Pete, I haven’t.  _ But _ ,” he quickly added, when hope lit up across the kid’s face, “whatever half-baked plan you have cooking in that big brain of yours? It won’t work. It just won’t.”

“How can you know that if you’ve never even tried?”

And,  _ damn _ . The kid had a point, despite Tony’s personal reservations. This was, in fact, one thing that he’d  _ never  _ tried.

“Peter…” He started, already knowing that he was fighting a losing battle.

“Can’t we just  _ try _ ?” Peter’s eyes bled innocence, bled a hope that Tony found filling up inside him, a spark of belief in being able to catch the things that seemed out of reach. “Please?”

He broke.

“What do you have in mind, kid?”

The same smile as before reclaimed its place on Peter’s face, and Tony decided that it might become one of his personal missions to make him smile like that over and over and over again.

“What exactly do you know about YouTube, Mister Stark?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it truly begins...


	9. December 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead! I hope you enjoy this one! It took a while to put together, but it all flowed out today, and it felt nice to be back in this universe.  
> Oh! And just for reference, this chapter coincides with Chapter 1 of Play. As this story continues, you'll see nods to most, if not all, of the videos shown in that fic.

Pepper leaned against the door frame of the lab, taking in the filming equipment that Peter had lovingly set up with a look of genuine interest on her face. “This is very impressive, Peter.”

“Thanks!” The kid was bouncing everywhere, constantly jumping between adjusting the DSLR or poking at their ring light. Tony just watched him, amused and more than a little fond. “Mister Stark helped me do all the research!”

“And paid for everything. Don’t forget that.”

“Oh, I’m sure that was a real trial for you,” Pepper said, shooting him a look that screamed  _ shut it, Tony, or I’ll shut it for you _ . She turned her attention back to Peter once she was sure he got her message. “Are you gonna film the Q&A first, sweetheart?”

The kid grinned. “Yeah!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Tony said, glancing between his fiance and the kid with narrowed eyes. “Since when were you two in cahoots with this?”

“I had Miss Potts pick the questions.”

“So she knows what we’re doing, and I don’t?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t know I was allowed to ask.”

“Duh, you’re allowed to ask.”

“Okay, fine,” he crossed his arms, “what are we doing, then?”

The question seemed to spark something inside the kid, and he bounced on the balls of his feet as he spoke. “I wanted to start with a Q&A kind of thing, so people can get to know us better, but I didn’t want it to  _ just  _ be a Q&A, cause that’s boring, so we’re doing the Newlywed Game.”

“We’re not calling it that, though, right?” Tony quickly asked, wincing as his mind wandered to some of the less-than-savory headlines that had popped up involving him and Peter, especially in the beginning, before Pepper and the press team had started aggressively shutting them down.

“But that’s what it’s called.”

“ _ Peter _ .”

“I’ll put in a disclaimer that we’re not gonna play it like  _ that _ , okay?” The kid rolled his eyes. “Calm down about it.”

“Yeah, Tony,” Pepper quipped, smiling, “calm down.”

“Okay!” Peter exclaimed, plopping down next to Tony on the workbench he’d carefully selected as their filming location. “Miss Potts, can you check that the lighting looks good?”

“Of course.” She walked over, checked the camera’s viewfinder, and gave him a cheerful thumbs up. “Looks perfect. You ready to start?”

“Yep! Can you hit record?”

“Of course.” Tony saw the little light on the front of the DSLR blink red, and had to physically force himself to stay relaxed. “You’re rolling.”

He felt Peter poke him in the arm, and he pulled his gaze away from the camera, pouring most of his attention into stopping his jaw from clenching in discomfort.

“We have to come up with an intro,” the kid said, easy and calm as if they weren’t filming a video that would be scrutinized by the entire world.

“An intro?”

“ _ Yes _ , Mister Stark. An intro. Something we say, or do, at the beginning of every video,” Peter said, like it was obvious. “It’s branding.”

It was easier to focus when his eyes were on Peter’s. He could forget about the lights, the mic, the red light blinking, all the reminders that he was throwing Peter to the press like a well-wrapped Christmas present.  _ Here’s my kid, tear us both apart! _

“Well, we have to worry about branding.”

“You’re the worst.” Peter laughed, easy and young, and Tony could feel some of his barriers crumbling already. “I’m just gonna introduce us and see how it goes.”

He shrugged. “Whatever you wanna do, kid.”

Peter turned back to the camera and waved. “Hey guys! I’m Peter, and this is,” the kid floundered, glancing between him and their virtual audience, “uh-”

“Forget my name, squirt?”

Jokes had seemed so far away just a few seconds ago, and yet Peter seemed to draw them out, coax him into his comfort zone in spaces where it shouldn’t exist.

“No!” Peter glared, but there was a genuine spark of excitement in his eyes, like he knew how significant that quip had truly been for them both. “I just… don’t know whether to call you Mister Stark or Tony.”

He couldn’t help it. He laughed, letting the expectations and weight fade into the background, become secondary to the kid sitting beside him.

_ Huh,  _ he thought,  _ maybe this wouldn’t be so hard, after all. _

\--

Tony had never, ever thought that he would classify making a YouTube video as fun, but, god, he really  _ did  _ have fun.

It was all Peter, really. The kid was overflowing with charisma, even if he was entirely blind to it himself. He was the catalyst for every interaction, and he kept the tempo up whenever Tony started to lag. 

On top of that, the exercise Peter picked reminded him, a little forcefully, of just how well he’d grown to know the kid since scooping him out of Queens all those months ago. It was scary, actually, how the answer to nearly every question seemed to be safely filed away somewhere in Tony’s brain. But, then again, maybe it was even more frightening that they’d  _ tied _ .

Peter knew just as much about Tony as Tony knew about him, and that was a little frightening. There were very few people on the planet that had seen into him in the ways Peter obviously had. Then again, he didn’t know exactly what he had been expecting. He and Peter had been living side-by-side for weeks now, spending nearly every waking minute together. There was no way that they  _ wouldn’t  _ grow closer than what made Tony strictly comfortable.

The kid hugged him when they signed off, before he got up to turn off the camera. He could see Pepper smiling at them from the corner of the room, and he had to resist the urge to stick his tongue out at her. 

“Don’t put this in the video,” he murmured, patting Peter’s back awkwardly before pulling away. “I’m serious. You’ll ruin my branding.”

“I’m  _ trying  _ to ruin your branding,” the kid shot back, pouting, “cause your branding sucks.”

“You suck.”

“Well,  _ you  _ suck.”

“Alright, boys, alright.” Tony glanced over as Pepper cut off the recording, the red light blinking out. “You’re both being incredibly mature right now. Congratulations.”

“Mister Stark started it.”

“I did  _ not _ -”

“ _ Boys _ ,” Pepper said, smiling despite the reprimand. “Play nice.”

Tony scoffed, while Peter just leaned amiably into his side.

“Did it look good, Miss Potts?” The kid asked, dropping his head onto Tony’s shoulder like personal space was something that just didn’t exist.

“I thought you were both very sweet.”

“Oh, that’s just great,” Tony drawled. “I’m  _ sweet  _ now, am I? The super villains of New York will shudder when Iron Man, who is certifiably  _ sweet _ , comes to bring them to justice.”

“I mean, you  _ are  _ kinda sweet,” Peter said. His voice was small, but there was an unapologetic grin on his face.

“I am not.”

“You’re sweet to me.”

“You’re an exception to the rule,” he snarked back, freezing as soon as he realized what he’d just admitted.

Pepper and Peter, on the other hand, just grinned at him like they’d won the lottery.

“Yes, yes,” he snapped, before anybody else could speak and make it any worse than it already was. “I know what I said. Don’t hold it to me in court. Now,  _ you _ ,” he pointed at Peter, who was staring up at him with the kind of adoration that made him want to melt into his hands, “said that you wanted to start editing this afternoon.”

Even with the obvious dismissal, Peter’s face didn’t fall. “Is that you telling me to get out?”

“Got it in one.”

“Cool.” The kid hopped up, snatched the camera up from the tripod, then glanced between Tony and Pepper with his nose scrunched up. “Don’t do anything gross while I’m gone.”

He snorted. “What qualifies as gross?”

“Literally anything more than a handshake.”

“God, Pete, then you really don’t wanna know what happened last-”

“No, no!” The kid covered his ears, wincing. “No! Telling me about that has  _ got  _ to qualify as child abuse.”

“Eh,” he shrugged, biting back his amusement, “I’ve got good lawyers.”

“I hate you,” Peter said, backing towards the door.

“I know.” He waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll come help you edit in a bit.”

Peter smiled like Tony had offered him a hell of a lot more than a vague promise to keep the kid company while he stressed over editing software for a few hours. “Thanks!”

“Yeah, yeah. Now skadaddle.”

“I’m skeddadling,” Peter yelled, darting out of the room.

“Sure are!” He called back, right before the door the lab slammed shut.

He turned his attention back to Pepper, who was staring at him with an unreadable expression on her face. Something in her eyes, though, told him that she’d just been watching him with the same level of fondness that he’d had while watching Peter.

“So, Pep, damage report,” he joked, suddenly feeling surprisingly self-conscious, “how badly is my image ruined? Will I be laughed out of every science convention for the rest of my life?”

“Tony,” she said, tone slightly admonishing, slightly awed, “you two are so…  _ right  _ together. The media is going to eat this up.”

“Wonderful.” He sighed. “I knew this was a terrible plan.”

“A terrible plan? Tony, I wish I’d thought of it ages ago.” Pepper cocked her head to the side, considering him like he was a proposal that she just couldn’t fathom out. “Don’t you want to have a good reputation?”

“Not at the cost of Peter’s.” He swallowed, tried to ignore the guilt rapidly filling his throat. “I feel like I’m using him.”

Her face softened. “You’re not. You’re letting him figure this out on his own. That’s important.”

“But  _ how much _ am I supposed to let him navigate it alone? I’ve got no way to gauge this, Pep. I’ve been managed my whole damn life. First Jarvis, then Obie, then you. Plus, it’s not like they write parenting books on how to help your child cope with becoming a goddamn celebrity overnight.”

Pepper paused, biting her lip. “Your child.”

“What?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, did you actually pay attention to a word that I just said?”

“Your child, Tony. You just called Peter your child.”

Oh, god. That was twice in ten minutes that he’d slipped up, said something he hadn’t meant to. Maybe he didn’t need Peter to ruin his reputation. He’d do it all on his own.

“I was speaking in abstractions.”

Pepper’s mouth quirked up, and for some reason, she looked  _ proud _ . “But he  _ is  _ your child, Tony. As long as the home interview goes well in a few days, Peter will, for all intents and purposes, be your child.”

Something cold raced down his back. He still didn’t know how to feel about the guardianship process. On one hand, the thought of having a legitimate claim to Peter satisfied the possessive side of him, the part that desperately needed to have everyone he loved tucked close to his chest. On the other hand, he’d had Howard Stark as a father, and that was about as much explanation as Tony felt was really necessary on that front.

“He’s May’s child,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m just helping.”

“I never said that he was going to  _ stop  _ being May’s child-”

“And besides,” he interjected, waving his hands around, anxiety bubbling under his skin, “that’s only legally. I know better than anyone that just because somebody is legally responsible for you doesn’t mean that you’re their child. It doesn’t mean that they care about you.”

“But you do care about Peter.”

“Do I, though?” He quipped, but it felt flimsy, even to him. Pepper didn’t even laugh. She just looked at him with pity in her eyes.

“Loving Peter isn’t a weakness, Tony, no matter what your father might’ve thought.” She stepped forward, stooped down to press a light kiss to his cheek. “I think you’ll find that, to most human beings, that love would be considered a strength.”

“Your point?”

“My point is that you should  _ love him _ , Tony.” Pepper rolled her eyes, regarding him like a toddler that needed a scolding. Then again, that was usually how she regarded him. “You already do, honey, and you’re not fooling anyone. Oh, and while you’re at it, go ahead and tell the kid, for god’s sake.”

“You want me to tell Peter Parker that I love him?”

“Yes, I do.”

Over the years, Tony had learned that people expected him to understand his own brain. Sure, nobody else did, but it was  _ his  _ brain, right?  _ His  _ genius intellect. Therefore, the inner workings of it must be as clear to him as halogen signs.

The thing was, Tony understood many things. There wasn’t a field of science that, at the very least, he couldn’t become an expert in overnight, if he wasn’t one already. The world was a backwards puzzle meant to be taken apart, examined, quantified.

The one thing on Earth that he didn’t understand, the one thing on Earth that he didn’t have even an ounce of control over, was his brain.

He didn’t know why Pepper’s urging made him spiral. He didn’t know why it made him tumble inwards, pull back from the world and Pepper and himself. It wasn’t like he wasn’t aware that he loved Peter. God, that ship has sailed weeks ago. But for some reason, the thought of vocalizing it sent every atom in his body sizzling with terror.

When he dragged himself back to reality, back to the present, Pepper had moved to the door, arms crossed, obviously waiting for his attention to refocus. This wasn’t her first rodeo. Hell, Tony was 99% sure that of everyone on Earth, Pepper Potts was the one who understood his brain the most.

“You had your crisis?” She asked, businesslike but not without sympathy.

He blinked, evaluating. “I’m… I’m  _ having  _ my crisis. As in, currently crisising.”

Pepper laughed, setting her hand on the door handle and shaking her head. “I’m gonna go upstairs. May’ll be home soon, so I’ll go ahead and sort out dinner.”

“Yeah,” he replied absently, mind still whirring. “Yeah, uh, I’ll just…”

“You’re going to finish up with your  _ crisis _ ,” she smiled around the word, “and then you’re going to go upstairs and help Peter with his editing.”

“Right. Yeah. I promised to do that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I’ve promised Peter a lot of things, haven’t I?”

“Yes, you have.”

“That’s a bad thing, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t.”

The door clicked shut.


	10. December 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere in the distance, all my other WIPs are wondering why Rewind is getting all my love recently. I'm wondering the same thing, but I'm not mad about it, either.  
> Oh! And a little disclaimer, before we start this one. I did as much research as I could about second-parent adoption, but a lot of the information I found is pretty vague in terms of procedure. I ended up just smashing a bunch of bullshit together, and pretending it works. Frankly, I don't even know if a home visit is necessary in a second-parent adoption, and there was probably a necessary court appearance that I just skipped entirely. Just... do a girl a favor, and ignore the specifics here, okay? Writing is hard.

Today was a big day.

The case worker assigned to Peter’s guardianship case had called to set up an interview over a week ago, and she was set to arrive at 10:00 am sharp. Tony wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about the whole thing. On one hand, his lawyers had assured him that taking on dual guardianship of a child he already knew was a lot easier than trying for a conventional adoption. On the other hand, he didn’t know what he’d do if the case worker rejected their request out of hand.

He tried to make the morning as normal as possible. Peter had set his alarm for 8:00, so Tony made sure that F.R.I.D.A.Y. had him up at 7:30 so he could have breakfast ready for him and May. After that, it had just been waiting.

When the case worker finally arrived, F.R.I.D.A.Y. brought her up in the Tower’s private elevator. Tony was impressed by how well she hid her awe as she stepped into the penthouse. She just walked forward and shook his hand, then did the same with May and, finally, Peter, face the picture of professionalism.

“I’m Ivy Foulger,” she greeted. “Thank you for making time to meet with me.”

Tony nearly snorted.  _ Like we had a choice. _ “Of course.”

May smiled, warm yet ever-so-slightly tense. “Thank you so much for coming.”

“That’s my job,” she responded, but not unkindly. “Is there somewhere we can sit and talk?”

He nodded in the direction of the living room. “Over here. Do you need to look at anything?”

“We can do that last. Is Peter living here?”

May nodded, letting Tony lead them to the array of couches.

“Right now,” she responded, sinking down next to Peter.

Mrs. Foulger sat in a loveseat across from them, and Tony just plopped down on Peter’s free side.

“Is that because of the media attention?”

Tony was glad that May was taking the lead, because all the obvious questioning was already wearing on his patience. “Yes.”

“Do you like living here, Peter?” Mrs. Foulger questioned.

“I mean, uh, yeah. Yeah, it’s… it’s nice.”

She smiled at him, and Tony felt himself settle just slightly at how genuine the expression seemed. Then, she turned her attention to him, and he found the experience slightly less relaxing.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions, Mister Stark?”

“I had assumed that that was what you were here to do,” he said, ignoring May’s jab to his ribs and drinking up the little laugh he heard Peter let out at the sarcasm.

In her defense, Mrs. Foulger took the joke in good humor. “Well, you’re not wrong. What is it that prompted you to want to take a part in Peter’s guardianship, Mister Stark?”

“Lots of things,” he said, and it was, in all fairness, a true answer. “It’s a logistical move, in some aspects. The media attention is difficult to handle, and it would simplify things if I didn’t have to jump through legal hoops whenever I needed something as simple as his birth certificate. Plus,” he sent a sideways glance in Peter’s direction, and swallowed down his pride, “he’s grown on me.”

Mrs. Foulger quirked up an eyebrow. “He’s  _ grown on you _ , has he?”

“Like fungus.”

Peter giggled again, while May looked at him incredulously.

For a second, Mrs. Foulger just seemed to look between him and Peter, who was still muffling laughter behind his palm. An echo of understanding slid across her face, and her tone softened.

“You do understand that guardianship is usually seen as a temporary step. Until you’ve gone through with the entirety of the second-parent adoption process, Mrs. Parker can revoke your privileges at any time.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have plans to continue the process?”

He shot a sideways glance in Peter’s direction, trying to read the teenager’s face. The kid just blinked back, expectation in his eyes.

He looked back at Mrs. Foulger. “Are you asking if I have plans to adopt him?”

“Yes, I am.”

“When we get to that bridge, it’ll be Peter’s choice whether or not we cross it. Not mine.”

Peter was grinning. “You butchered that expression,” he whispered.

“I  _ tweaked  _ that expression.”

“Mister Stark,” Mrs. Foulger said, gently redirecting his attention. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask. If Peter is comfortable with the adoption continuing, will you be willing to take on that responsibility?”

He swallowed, wishing that he could slow his hammering pulse with a thought. “Yes.”

She nodded, and Tony might’ve been projecting, but he could’ve sworn that he saw a glimmer of respect in her eyes. “Alright. Have you ever had any other children?”

The snark came easily. He always seemed to be the most volatile when his anxiety was running high. “Not that I’m aware of.”

“Have you ever been charged with a felony?”

“Shockingly, no.”

“Tony,” May hissed.

“It’s perfectly alright, Mrs. Parker,” Mrs. Foulger said, eyes continuing their dance between Tony and Peter, who was grinning wider and wider with every exchange. “I understand humor when I see it, and a large part of this process is gauging personalities.”

“Mister Stark has a lot of that,” the kid offered.

Mrs. Foulger smiled at him, ignoring Tony’s obvious indignation. “I can see that. Do you mind if I ask  _ you  _ some questions, Peter?”

“Sure.”

“Do you want me to ask Mister Stark and your aunt to leave?”

Tony didn’t miss the fact that Peter shuffled a little closer to May at the suggestion. He also didn’t miss the pang of irrational jealous that leapt through him at the motion.

“No, uh, they can stay.”

“Alright.” There was a pause, as if Mrs. Foulger was giving Peter the time to compose himself. “Are you comfortable with Mister Stark becoming one of your guardians?”

“Yeah. I mean, he and May asked me before they did anything.”

She inclined her head gently. “You do understand that Mister Stark will have a high level of involvement in your life, should this process be approved?”

“Yes.”

“Do you trust him to make important decisions about your welfare?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, voice quiet. His gaze flickered to Tony, then danced back to his lap. “Yeah, I do.”

“Do you believe that he has your best interests in mind?”

“Yeah. He’s, uh,” Peter shot him a cheeky glance, and Tony could see himself reflected in the expression, could see how they both grasped for humor in moments of vulnerability, “he’s really  _ sweet  _ to me.”

“Not for much longer if you act like that,” he muttered back, hoping that it was too low for anybody but Peter to pick up. Even more, he hoped that it settled the kid’s nerves.

There was a small smirk on Mrs. Foulger’s face, amusement breaking through the professionalism. “I’m not sure that many people would describe Tony Stark as sweet.”

“He’s very good with him,” May interjected, shooting both of the boys a quieting glare. “They spend most of their time together. There’s been a steep learning curve since we moved in, but Tony’s always stepped up to the plate. If Peter needs something, Tony makes sure that he gets it.”

Mrs. Foulger redirected her attention to May. “Do you and Mister Stark get along well?”

“Very well, although it surprised me at first, too. It helps that we have a mutual goal.”

“And that goal is Peter?”

May raised an eyebrow, challenging. “Obviously.”

“I apologize,” Mrs. Foulger added, looking a little sheepish. “It’s part of my job to ask for clarification.”

“I understand.”

The case worker glanced down at her phone, then nodded to herself. “I think I’ve gotten most of what I need. Just a few more general questions. Does anybody else live here, besides you three?”

“My fiance, Pepper,” Tony said. “I’m sorry she couldn’t be here. She got called into a meeting unexpectedly.”

“That’s fine. Is she comfortable with you taking guardianship?”

“She was the pioneer of the whole idea, actually, along with May.”

“And you get along with her as well, Peter?”

“Oh, yeah. Miss Potts is super nice.”

“Perfect.” Another check of her phone and, presumably, whatever list she was using. “There are a few specific concerns that pop up with a case like Peter’s. He’s old enough that we aren’t necessarily worried about ensuring that someone is available to be with him during the day, although that  _ is  _ something we prefer if possible-”

“I’ll be with him,” Tony interjected. “Obviously not 24/7, but my schedule is flexible. If he needs me, I’ll be here.”

She inclined her head. “That’s good to know. However, you’re a very high profile man, Mister Stark. And now, so is Peter. I hate to ask this, but how do you plan to keep him safe?”

Tony swallowed, composed himself. He’d been expecting this question. Both his lawyers and Pepper had cautioned him that it would almost certainly come up.

“We’ve been creating a plan for that. School was an immediate security concern, so he finished this semester on homebound. We’re talking to Midtown, though, and we’re hoping he can go back next semester. If you need more information on the security the school is adding, I can get those blueprints to you. Otherwise, my former head of security, Happy Hogan, is going to oversee a security detail for him.”

“And you trust Mister Hogan?”

“I’d say that I trusted him with my life, which I do, but I think it’s more telling that I’d trust him with Peter’s.”

Another smile played across Mrs. Foulger’s face at that, and he knew that he’d said the right thing.

“Alright, Mister Stark, Mrs. Parker, Peter.” She nodded to each of them as she spoke. “I’ve learned a lot. The last thing I need to do is just have a look around the house. Specifically, I’d like to see the places where Peter spends most of his time.”

“I’ll take you,” Tony offered, standing and smoothing down the creases on his pants. “Pete’s got an essay to work on before lunch.”

He spent the next half an hour showing Mrs. Foulger through the penthouse, and answering a wide range of extra questions, from details about the layout of certain rooms to memories from his childhood. He tried to gloss over how shitty his dad was, which was what his lawyers had suggested. They didn’t tell him to be untruthful, exactly, but rather to paint a lighter picture than reality.

When they finished, he walked her back to the elevator. She stopped him before he could ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. to send it up, voice dropping into a tone that was more sincere than it had been for the entire meeting.

“I’m going to be honest with you, Mister Stark,” she said, looking around as if they might be overheard, like she was doing something wrong, “you’re not exactly a prime candidate for the adoption of a child. If it wasn’t for the special circumstances surrounding your relationship with Peter, and the fact that you’ll be sharing the responsibilities with his current guardian, we would’ve rejected your application outright.”

He tilted his head to the side, considering her, considering her motivations. “But you didn’t.”

She nodded. “No, we didn’t. 

He forced himself not to let the desperation slip through, not to let her see underneath the veneer. “So?”

“So I’m going to approve your application.” The relief hit him like an avalanche, and  _ that  _ must’ve shown, because she rushed to caution him. “That’s not a guarantee that it’ll get the green light once it leaves my desk, but it gives you a good chance.”

“Thank you,” he said, and he meant it.

She shrugged, shaking her head a little ruefully. “I can tell that you mean to do right by him, and you have the resources to achieve that. In my book, that’s what really matters.”

“I  _ do  _ want to do right by him.”

“I know.” She took a few steps towards the elevator. “Have any plans for the rest of the day?”

“Editing a YouTube video.”

She blinked. “That… wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head, “me neither.”

\--

Tony spun Peter’s spare desk chair lazily, glancing over his shoulder at the desktop’s screen. “How’s it going?”

Peter didn’t look up. He was spread out on his bed, still in the same position he’d assumed fifteen minutes ago, after they’d  _ finally  _ finished editing the Q&A video that they’d shot  _ days  _ earlier. “It’s still rendering.”

“Still?”

“Yeah.”

“How long does this  _ take _ ?”

“I dunno,” Peter shrugged. “What time is it?”

He checked his watch. “10:49.”

“Ew.”

“Yeah.”

A few minutes passed before the computer  _ dinged  _ triumphantly. Peter lunged to his feet, transforming from dejected exhaustion to excitement in a half second flat.

“Okay, okay! Now we just gotta upload it, and then we’re off.”

Peter fiddled a little with the computer. They’d made their channel the day before and, at the kid’s urging, had named it  _ theironvlogs _ . Tony thought the name was stupid, but Peter seemed to think it was absolutely hilarious.

At the end of the day, Peter always got what he wanted.

“Okay,” the kid said again, waving his hand to tell Tony to come closer, “while it’s uploading, we get to decide what the video’s title and description should be.”

“Don’t give it a description.”

“I can’t just  _ not  _ give it a description.” Peter rolled his eyes, looking as if Tony had just suggested he commit a cardinal sin. “It’s gotta say  _ something _ .”

“Fine. Scoot.” He gave a push at Peter’s chair, trying to grab for the keyboard, but stopped when Peter shot him a distrustful glare.

“What’re you gonna do?”

“Give it a description.”

“If you just write ‘description’ as the description, I’m going to destroy you.”

“Many have tried, none have succeeded.”

“I’ll be the first.”

“You know, Peter,” he finally managed to roll the kid’s chair out of the way, and started typing, “you’re very violent when angered. You might want to get that looked into. Do some soul-searching, perhaps…”

“I  _ actually  _ hate you.”

“Should’ve said that to the case worker earlier.”

“Maybe I should’ve.”

“Mhm.” 

He finished his description with a grin, reaching out to ruffle the kid’s hair before rolling his chair aside.

Peter read it with a look of slowly increasing annoyance. “ _ You know who we are.  _ Really, Mister Stark?  _ You know who we are _ ?”

“What, you’re not a fan?”

“No.” Peter’s face scrunched up in thought. “Fine. You can keep your description, but I choose the title.”

“Works for me.”

In the end, Peter settled on  _ The Not-Even-Close-To-Newlywed Game! _ , which amused Tony to no end, although he refused to admit that on principle.

The video was ready. The title and description were done. Peter had picked a thumbnail. The only thing left to do was hit  _ Publish _ .

The kid turned to look at him, eyes shining. “Are you ready?”

Dread swooped through him, unsteady and damning.  _ No. _

But he just gestured toward the computer easily, kicking the uncertainty in the stomach and hoping it had the sense to stay down. “Duh.”

Peter clicked the button, and for a frightening moment, Tony had the bizarre sensation that the world was looking in, pointing and staring and making up a million different things to slap on the cover of the next morning’s newspaper.

And then the kid was poking him in the arm, and everything else fell away.

“So,” he asked, offering Peter a lopsided smile, “now we wait, huh?”

“No. Now we  _ nap _ .”

“Pete, it’s,” he glanced down at his watch again, “11:34 at night. At this point, a nap is just going to sleep.”

“Not if we do it on the couch.”

“We have beds, Pete. Why would we sleep on the couch?”

“Because I want to watch a movie.”

“You want to watch a movie at 11:34 at night?”

“Yes.”

One day, he’d have to thank Peter for making the weight of the world an easier burden to bear. Sometimes, in moments like these, he felt so light that it was as if the heaviness wasn’t even there. 

“You’re a weird kid, did you know that?”

“Yeah, I know.”

He sighed. “Fine. Star Wars?”

Peter grinned. “Star Wars.”

Tony had known from the beginning of the conversation that he’d be the one losing. 

For once in his life, it didn’t sting.


	11. December 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little note before we get going on this chapter: I don’t actually make YouTube videos, and it’s a lot harder than you’d think to get statistics on how quickly the “average” viral video gains views. I’ve based follower counts off of other large YouTube channels, and done my best to keep everything as realistic as possible, but I’m sure I’ve missed the mark on a few things. Y’know, just remember that I’m doing my best and I’m not an expert.  
> This chapter is HEAVILY dedicated to underoosstark and hopeless_hope (dazzlingtony on Tumblr). The majority of the “YouTube comments” you’re about to read came directly from them. This update probably wouldn’t exist without their help, because I was struggling a lot with that aspect of the story. But, thanks to them, I’ve survived and y’all get a new chapter! They both write some rad fics of their own and their Tumblr blogs are AWESOME, so go give them lots and lots of love!

He woke up groggy, back aching in the unmistakable way that it did when he slept for too long in an awkward position. Someone was touching his face, and that fact alone told him that it was Pepper long before her voice filtered in.

“Tony, honey,” she murmured. “It’s morning.”

He swallowed, throat dry and mouth sticky. Ugh. Where the hell even was he? “‘S it?”

“Mhm,” Pepper’s voice was amused. “I have something to show you two.”

_ You two? _ There were two of them? Since when did-

Oh. Right. He recognized the over-warm weight pinning his left side in place. He flexed his fingers, wincing as they tingled at the movement. The weight shifted, living and moving and, as he focused more,  _ breathing _ .

Peter. He and Peter been watching movies. In all honesty, Tony was shocked that he’d actually managed to fall asleep. He’d been so keyed up about posting that YouTube video that he’d thought he’d be up all night for sure.

Oh, god. The YouTube video. It must’ve been hours since they’d posted that thing. Long enough for the media to sink their claws into it, for sure.

He blinked his eyes open, reaching down to shake Peter awake while squinting up at Pepper, vision blurry. She just smiled down at him, StarkPad held in one hand, the other still brushing gently over his cheek.

“Mis’er S’ark?” Peter muttered, and Tony let his gaze dart down to where the kid was rubbing his face, obviously trying to wake himself up. “‘S something wrong?”

“No, sweetheart,” Pepper said gently, and Peter blinked at her like he’d just realized she was there. “I’ve got something to show you.”

Tony would never understand how children could either pop into wakefulness as soon as they felt like it, or take an  _ eon  _ to get to some semblance of functionality. Either way, the allure of a surprise had Peter fumbling upright immediately, and Tony groaned as he followed his lead.

Despite the fact that they were both rapidly waking up, Peter kept himself draped over Tony, head resting on his shoulder as Pepper passed the StarkPad over.

Were kids always this clingy, or did Tony just get a weird one?

“You’re the number one video on YouTube,” Pepper murmured. Tony could see her watching their reactions as they stared down at the view count. It was already creeping up on 2,000,000 views, and it had only been up for 9 or so hours. “It took a bit for people to find the video, but once they did, YouTube actually  _ crashed  _ for about half an hour. Your Google searches have skyrocketed. You’re trending on every single social media platform I could even begin to name. The channel was the leading story on the eight o’clock news. Good Morning America even slapped together a whole segment on it.”

“Wow,” Peter breathed. Tony looked away from the StarkPad in favor of watching him. The kid’s eyes were wide with excitement, flickering around the screen, from the video itself, paused on the opening frame, to the view count beneath it.

Pepper smiled. “You’ve got lots of comments to read later, Peter.”

“This is so  _ cool! _ ” Peter exclaimed, excitedly meeting Tony’s gaze. “Isn’t it cool, Mister Stark?”

“Cool… is a word that someone might use to describe it,” he said carefully. The second Peter looked away, he looked back to Pepper, overwhelmed. “Uh, why do I feel like I just boarded a ride I can never get off?”

She laughed.

He laughed then, too, but only because Peter was watching him again and he didn’t really feel like he had a choice.

_ Peter better be right about this. _

\--

Tony ordered from Delmar’s for lunch. His only real reasoning for the choice was that Peter loved it, but somewhere over the past few weeks, that had become one of his prime motivations for just about everything.

As soon as Peter sat down at the counter, he took a huge bite of his sandwich and starting talking.

“I’ve been looking at the comments on our video.”

He flinched back a little. “Why?”

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say, because Peter looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Uh, because people are leaving comments on our video and it’s usually, like, something you read?”

“Alright, alright,” he snipped, rolling his eyes. “Would you and your teenage sass like to eat your sandwich peacefully, or continue bullying your elders?”

Peter looked like he’d been given a gift. “So you admit that you’re old?”

He pointed at the kid, glaring. “Shut your mouth. That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I mean, it’s what you  _ said  _ though-”

“Y’know, back in my day, children weren’t allowed to speak out of turn.”

“Well, I mean, I can’t imagine that there were a lot of other children around with the dinosaurs, so…”

“ _ Parker _ .”

Peter grinned, then grabbed his phone and started scrolling. “I’m gonna read you some comments now.”

“Lovely,” he groaned. “Just how I wanted to spend my lunch.”

“Oh,  _ shh _ .” If Peter picked up any more sass, Tony might actually start getting worried. “People really like it, Mister Stark! A bunch of people keep commenting about how nice you seem.”

“Oh?” He leaned against the counter opposite Peter, considering. “And what do they think about you?”

That got the kid to roll his eyes. “They think I’m  _ cute _ .”

He let out a bark of laughter. “I bet they do.”

“And a lot of them don’t believe that you’re not my dad.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

“See, this person commented a whole, like, conspiracy theory of how we must be related.”

“Their sources?”

“Uh, apparently our chins are the same and we both have brown eyes.”

“Is that… it?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow,” he twirled a pen around his fingers, amused. “The FBI better get on hiring them. They’re obviously a prodigal detective.”

Peter giggled. “Oh, and here’s someone else who takes off their shoes in the car. Apparently, it drives their dad crazy, too.”

“Hm.” He didn’t comment on the way the comment implicitly pegged Peter as his kid. It looked like the subtlety had been lost on Peter, and he wasn’t about to explain it. “It’s a universal offense, apparently.”

“You say that like it’s illegal.”

“It ought to be.”

“You’re so dramatic. It’s, like, actually a problem.” Despite his complaints, Peter didn’t glance up from his phone, talking around another bite of his sandwich. “I can’t actually tell if this next person likes us or hates us. They said we’re cringe but cute.”

“That’s your new slogan,” he offered, grinning.

“Oh my god. You’re right. We can sell t-shirts.”

“Already thinking of merchandise, huh? Very enterprising, I must say.”

“You’re very funny,” Peter quipped, sounding like he definitely did  _ not  _ think that Tony was funny. “Oh, here’s another one.  _ I never even knew that I needed Tony Stark making dad jokes in my life until this exact moment, but now I’m not sure how I ever lived without it. _ See, Mister Stark? Someone likes your dad jokes.”

“Good to finally get some of the appreciation that I so obviously deserve.”

“They only say that because they don’t have to actually live with your dad jokes 24/7.”

“And these people only think you’re  _ cute  _ because they don’t have to live with  _ your  _ sass 24/7.” He reached over and plucked the kid’s phone out of his hand. “Now quit reading comments and eat your lunch. You know how hungry you get by 2:00 if you don’t finish.”

\--

Peter burst into his office sometime in the middle of the afternoon, phone held aloft like a prize.

“I have more comments!”

“ _ Peter _ ,” he chastised, but only half-heartedly, “I’m working.”

The kid rolled his eyes, grabbing a spare desk chair and pulling it over until its wheels collided with Tony’s feet. “Well,  _ stop  _ working.”

“That’s not how jobs work,” he sighed, already closing his email and shutting down his computer.

“It’s how  _ your  _ job works.”

“Not exactly.”

Peter shrugged, obviously unbothered by the prospect of interrupting. It wasn’t something he would’ve done a few weeks ago, for sure. The beginning of their time together had been like walking on eggshells. Now, though, Peter had settled into Tony’s life like he’d always been there.

“Do you wanna hear the comments or not?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No, not really.”

He snorted. No, he hadn’t thought that he did.

“Read on, then.”

Peter did, pushing away some of Tony’s papers and abandoning his chair in favor of crawling onto his desk, because apparently  _ all  _ furniture was a jungle gym to children. “ _ Finding out that Tony Stark is good with kids is like discovering that Thor makes those tiny meals from Pinterest and, frankly, nothing is real anymore. _ ”

“That’s just a collection of gibberish.”

“It’s not. It’s funny.”

“Maybe to you and your Gen Z humor.”

“Yeah, I guess your sense of humor does probably start going when you get old. Along with your hearing and your joints.” The kid was reading another comment before he could formulate a retort. “ _ This video is just Tony Stark acting like a concerned dad for 12 minutes straight _ .”

“Are there any comments that  _ don’t  _ focus on me being a dad?”

“Not really. Oh, wait, here’s one.  _ Who was going to tell me that Tony Stark’s laugh is the prettiest thing in the world? _ ”

He bit back a groan. “Oh, god. They did not just call me pretty.”

“No, of course not.” Peter was grinning shamelessly, obviously enjoying his embarrassment. “They called  _ your laugh _ pretty.”

“And that’s obviously a distinction.”

“Obviously. I’ve got more. Uh, this person thinks that Flippy and Solo and cute names for a fish.”

“Solo, maybe. Have to admit, Pete, but I’m docking points for creativity on Flippy.”

The kid glowered. “I’m docking points for creativity for your  _ face _ .”

“Ouch.” He clutched his chest, feigning pain. “That was a low blow, Pete.”

“You’re a low blow.”

“You just keep ‘em coming, too. How am I meant to recover?” He reached over to the stack of papers that Peter had pushed aside, pulling a few packets off the top. “Now, if I give you some equations to check, will you finally be quiet?”

Amazingly, the work  _ did  _ shut the kid up. Sure, it was only for about ten minutes, but Tony was surprised it worked at all.

It was the little things in life.

\--

Later that night, a good few hours after he’d sent Peter off to bed, Tony slipped back into his office and opened his laptop.

It wasn’t difficult to find the video. When he opened YouTube, it was the first icon to pop up under the  _ Trending  _ list. He clicked the link, and hit pause as soon as the page loaded. Then he took a breath, and scrolled down.

_ i’m sorry, but did ACTUAL IRON MAN just call his intern “squirt” i can’t deal _

_ 6:07 WHEN HE RUFFLED HIS HAIR IM DYING _

_ this is probably the first genuine smile I’ve ever seen on Tony Stark’s face omg _

_ This Just In: Iron Man has a heart of Cotton!!! the actual softest, I’m crying!!! _

_ tony stark: peter parker is not my child _ _   
_ _ also tony stark: proceeds to make a youtube video where peter parker is definitely his child _

He had to admit: that one startled out a laugh.

There were thousands and thousands more. To his surprise, the majority of them were positive. He  _ did  _ cringe at a few of the teenage girls thirsting after Peter. There were more of those than he would’ve liked, and they made him feel a bit stupid, really, because he hadn’t considered that outcome before, despite the fact that it should’ve been obvious.

To his surprise, he found a few comments with replies from Peter. He’d responded using  _ theironvlogs _ , but signed off each message with a little  _ -PP _ , as if he expected Tony to take up the job too, at some point.

His comments were, in general, as dorky as he expected them to be. 

_ like this comment if you’ve written a report on Tony Stark before _

_ Mr. Stark is gonna be so concerned by how many of you guys liked this comment omg -PP _

_ Tony Stark knows what Queer Eye is, this is not a drill _

_ He does!!! His favorite is Antoni but he’s always super pumped about Bobby’s designs! Apparently he used to watch the og show too! -PP _

_ Next video: Tony nominates Peter for Queer Eye _

_ Omg I wouldn’t even be mad -PP _

_ I can’t believe Tony Fucking Stark called his intern adorable _

_ Somebody plz come make him stop he’s an embarrassment -PP _

_ wish my dad was this cool. or, just like, cool at all lmao _

_ He may seem cool but he also yelled at the coffee maker this morning so do with that what you will I guess -PP _

_ peter parker is gonna be the next tony Stark, I’m calling it now _

_ There’s only ever gonna be one Tony Stark, but thank you for giving me, like, the best compliment ever! -PP _

The last one made him pause. In many ways, the past few weeks had allowed him to grow to understand Peter on a frighteningly personal level. And yet, every once in a while, the kid would completely blindside him.

The thing was: Tony just couldn’t wrap his head around why Peter adored him. He saw it. He knew that it was there, that it was real. But seeing something didn’t necessarily mean that Tony understood it.

If he could be the man that Peter Parker thought he was, he would be set for life.

Unfortunately, not all of the comments were positive. He’d known that Peter had been censoring when he’d read them out earlier. He wasn’t stupid, after all. There was no way that their video had gotten the amount of attention that it had and  _ not  _ attracted at least a little negativity.

He was, of course, completely right.

A couple of the comments were funny, in their own way, but only because he’d never been able to take keyboard death threats very seriously. They always felt hollow, like the person behind them just hadn’t been able to think up a better insult and gone with the only one they’d known.

They started to sting when people brought into question the sanity of allowing Tony Stark to interact with a child.

_ am I the only person out here that’s like,,,, kinda pissed at ts for using this kid as a publicity stunt? _

_ so no one else finds it creepy that stark knows what position his intern sleeps in? …. yikes. _

_ I guess we’re all just forgetting that Iron Man is a mass murderer but okay _

_ This whole video makes me v uncomfy. What tf is Tony Stark doing with a literal teenager? I haven’t liked it from the beginning and I don’t like it anymore now. _

_ did anyone even ask for this bc i’ve never been more disinterested in my life lmao _

_ I’m only watching the video for the cute intern. Tony Stark can rot in hell. _

_ Kid’s probably Stark’s real kid considering the man wouldn’t know how to keep it in his pants if he Tried _

_ The 233,678 dislikes are all me hating Tony fucking Stark _

_ lol love watching stark manipulate children, thanks youtube! _

_ This kid’s aunt must really hate him to leave him in the company of someone as heartless as Tony Stark… _

_ @CPS where u at? _

_ so, what do y’all think the kid’s giving Tony in return for all the attention?? ;) _

He slammed his laptop shut at that last comment, seething. In fact, he probably would’ve spent his whole night pissed off if the door hadn’t opened only a few moments later. He didn’t even realize that he’d been sitting in the dark until the hallway’s light fell over him. 

He wasn’t particularly surprised to see Peter slipping over the threshold. Of course, he wasn’t particularly surprised to see Peter pretty much anywhere in the Tower, nowadays.

“What’re you doing in here?” The kid asked, wandering over to him.

He gestured around the office vaguely. “Not much, as you can see. What’re  _ you  _ doing up and about?”

“Looking for you.”

“Well, that’s convenient, seeing as you’ve found me.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, leaning against the corner of the desk and watching him with his usual brand of frightening intuition. “You were reading the comments, right? On the video.”

His first instinct was to lie, but then he faltered. If they were going to do this, if they were going to brave this shitty frontier together, they were going to have to be honest about it.

How could he ask Peter to be open with him when he refused to be open in return?

“Yeah, I was. How’d you know?”

Peter shrugged. “I guessed. You’re don’t like not knowing things.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Is that a criticism?”

“Nah, just an observation.” The kid rubbed at the logo on the back of Tony’s laptop. “Do you wanna know why I read all those comments to you today?”

He did, actually. He’d assumed that Peter had been doing it out of pure excitement, but now he was wondering if that really  _ was  _ the only motivation.

“If you wanna tell me, then yes.”

“I knew you were gonna read them all for yourself once I went to bed, y’know, and I knew that you were only gonna remember the bad ones. But there were also so many people who liked it, people who liked  _ you _ , and I wanted to remind you of that.”

“They only like me because of you, Pete.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Peter said, glaring a little. “But even if it is, we tend to decide if we like someone based on how they interact with other people, don’t we?”

He considered the statement. It… It wasn’t  _ wrong _ . And if that was how the world chose to judge him, he wasn’t sure that he minded it all that much. He  _ liked  _ the person that he was around Peter. Or, he didn’t hate him nearly as much as he hated all the other versions of himself. Maybe that  _ was  _ who he wanted other people to see.

“That’s very intuitive.”

Peter grinned, preening at the compliment. “Thanks. Oh, and by the way?” The kid reached out and started the Newton’s cradle that Tony kept on the corner of his desk. “Who cares what a couple of people on the internet think? They don’t matter.” Something in his face brightened. “Hey, d’you wanna know something my Uncle Ben used to say?”

Tony’s chest ached, just like it always did when Peter mentioned Ben or his parents. “Of course I do, Pete.”

“He always told me that if  _ everyone  _ agreed with what I was doing, I was probably doing a whole lot of nothing.”

“That’s good advice.”

“It is. You should take it.”

He rolled his eyes. “Since when did I sign up to be lectured by a sixteen year old?”

“You didn’t sign up,” Peter said, smirking. “I was a  _ gift _ .”

“More like a trial,” he grumbled, but he didn’t mean it. Peter knew that. He could see it in the way his smile only grew at the comment.

“Trials teach you things, Mister Stark.  _ Important  _ things.”

“Such as?”

An easy hopefulness fell over Peter’s face. “Like how to make mini pizzas for a late-night snack?”

“You want pizza,” he deadpanned, hiding his amusement.

“Yes?”

“Alright, alright. Fine.” Peter’s face lit up at his concession, like he was  _ still  _ surprised that Tony would do pretty much anything that he asked. “Although why I humor you, I’ll never know.”

Of course, Tony  _ did  _ know. He knew that Peter knew, too. It was just that neither of them said it out loud.


	12. December 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little note: I actually based the aquarium in this chapter off of the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, which is obviously not in New York. I have never been to an aquarium in New York. I do not claim that this is a valid experience of someone who would visit an aquarium in New York. If I'm being honest, I don't even know if there _is_ an aquarium in New York.  
> I'm not gonna pretend that the editing on this is spectacular. I started classes for this semester today, so I slapped this together as a de-stressing exercise. Hopefully it's fun!

Tony had a problem, and that problem was simultaneously very simple and very complex.

He’d had much bigger problems, at least in the scheme of the universe. But… But this problem  _ bothered _ him. Small in the scheme of the universe, but big in the scheme of Tony’s life.

The problem? Peter was miserable. 

They’d brought in a proctor from Midtown to administer the kid’s exams, and while he’d aced all of them, he was suddenly left with, well, pretty much nothing to do. No schoolwork, no long hours of distraction. And without that, it seemed like the Tower quickly shifted from a haven into a prison.

(Of course, Tony had already known that Peter resented being cooped up for so long. It was just that, during school, it had been easier to manage. Now, it was out of control.)

Despite all the amusements in the Tower, it just wasn’t enough to stop such an active 16 year old kid from going stir crazy. Spider-Man didn’t do all that much to take the edge off, either. The thing was: Peter never left the Tower as himself. He never breathed the admittedly pollutant-filled air of his city with his own lungs: not filtered through spandex or an industrial air conditioning system. 

Peter was miserable. And for Tony, that was a  _ problem _ .

Plus, it was only a few days before Christmas. He couldn’t have a miserable kid in his Tower on Christmas. How shitty would  _ that  _ be?

He wanted to keep the kid safe. There was nothing he wanted  _ more  _ than to keep this kid safe. Or, he’d thought that there was nothing he wanted more than that. Now, he was starting to wonder if keeping the kid  _ happy  _ was just as important.

So, he came up with a plan.

He had Happy compile a list of places in the city with solid security systems. From there, they narrowed it down to places that would allow such a high profile visitor  _ and  _ keep it quiet.

They ended up with the aquarium.

It wasn’t a perfect choice. For one, it was so last minute that Tony couldn’t buy the place out for the day, so they’d be amongst other tourists and locals, any of whom might recognize them. It was also an aquarium, and Tony was pretty sure that an aquarium wouldn’t be on the top 10 list of places an angsty teenager wanted to go.

But it  _ was  _ out of the Tower. It had a newly installed security system that the operators were willing to allow Happy to monitor. It was close enough to the Tower that the transport could be done without a lot of fanfare.  _ And  _ it was dark, bound to be crowded this time of year. If they played it safe: dressed inconspicuously, had the few security guards Tony planned on having tail them through the exhibits hang back, didn’t stop and talk to anyone, then they should be alright.

He hoped they’d be alright, at least.

He decided not to tell Peter about the plans until the morning they left, because he was, like, 90% sure that kids liked surprises. That’s what made Christmas fun, right? Why else would parents go through the trouble of wrapping all those presents, if not for the mystery factor?

Yeah, Tony had no idea what he was doing.

He woke Peter up at 8:00. His original plan had been to come into the kid’s room guns blazing, jolting him awake with a joke about not having all day and practically hauling the sure-to-be-sleep-dazed teenager out of bed.

Then he opened the door, caught one glimpse of Peter, curled up around a pillow, drooling a little, and he just couldn’t do it.

Damn it. Even this far in, he still had moments where he kinda hated that he couldn’t hate this kid.

“Pete?” He called, lowering himself down on the corner of the teenager’s bed and hoping he was doing this right. “C’mon, squirt, we’ve got shit to do.”

The kid groaned, opening one eye and glaring up, somehow managed to look both groggy and annoyed all at once.

“‘S it worth being awake for?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“We’re going out.”

Peter sat up, hair matted up on one side of his head and shirt askew.

“ _ What _ ? Like, uh, like out on your balcony out or  _ out _ out?”

“ _ Out _ out.”

The pure excitement in Peter’s eyes was worth all the time and stress and logistics that had gone into that moment. God, Tony would  _ buy _ an aquarium if he could make Peter smile like that again.

Was an aquarium a good Christmas present?

He’d ask Pepper later.

“Really? Like,  _ really?  _ You’re not joking around with me?”

“Nope. Not a joke.”

The kid fumbled out of bed, half-heartedly swiping at his hair. “Where’re we going?”

“The aquarium.”

Peter stalled halfway to his dresser. “I didn’t think you even knew that New York  _ had _ an aquarium.”

“Shut up.  _ Of course _ I know that New York has an aquarium.”

“You had Happy look it up, didn’t you?”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Maybe I had Happy look it up. But  _ c’mon _ , Pete. It’s an aquarium! Kids like those, don’t they?”

Peter leaned back against the wall and studied him. “Sure, I guess, but I can’t imagine that  _ you  _ like aquariums.”

“What, and I can’t do something just because you might like it?”

“Oh, no, you definitely can.” God, since when had Peter gotten so good at analyzing him? It was a little disconcerting, the way he was staring him down. “I’ve never even mentioned going to an aquarium, s’all.”

“So? I extrapolated.”

“No, you schemed.” A spark of realization lit up the kid’s face. “We’re going to an aquarium because it’s dark, right? You think that people won’t notice us if we’re someplace dark.”

He winced. Damn it. He  _ had  _ to stop forgetting that Peter was just as smart as he was. “Yeah, Pete. That  _ was  _ part of the plan, but… but we’re still going  _ out _ , right? That’s a good thing?”

Peter smiled, shy and unsure, but it was a win in Tony’s books. “Yeah. I mean,  _ yeah _ . I can like aquariums.”

He grinned back. “I can probably like aquariums, too.”

_ I’ll like anything that makes you happy. Star Wars, sandwiches with ridiculous toppings, overpriced aquariums. Hell, I’ll even learn to love YouTube if it’s what you want. _

“So are we, like, aquarium people now?”

He snorted. “Is that a thing?”

“I mean, I think I’ve just made it a thing.”

_ This kid. _

\--

Tony drove, which seemed to surprise Peter. Although, to be fair, it had  _ also  _ surprised Happy, when he’d insisted on it the day before.

What could he say? He was a control freak, and he just so happened to become  _ even more  _ of a control freak when Peter was involved.

He parked in an absurdly expensive multi-storey garage that was adjoined to the aquarium. Happy and the other security car tailed him in, and they found three open spots next to each other. Peter smiled shyly at the guards when they got out.

“Hi. I’m, uh, I’m Peter,” he said, offering his hand to the nearest guard. “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”

She smiled at him, looking bemused but genuine. “Hi there, Peter. It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“Alright, kid, c’mon.” He grabbed Peter’s shoulder and sent a grateful nod the security’s guard’s way. “It’s aquarium time.”

The kid was practically bouncing the whole way to the elevator. “Don’t we have to get tickets?”

“No.” He was doing his best to give Peter his full attention, but a part of him was constantly on edge. This was a risk, and it had been from the beginning. A calculated risk, for sure, but it was still a risk. “I already paid for us. We’re going in a side entrance.”

“Do they usually let people do that?”

“They usually let people like us do that.”

They got to the elevator just as Peter sighed, shoulders slumping. Tony had to prod him to get him to press the call buttons, which was something that the kid usually  _ loved _ . He didn’t speak again until they were all crammed inside. 

“I’m never gonna get used to his, am I?”

“Get used to what?”

“ _ This _ ,” Peter glowered, waving around himself like their very surroundings held the answer. “Security guards and side entrances and people recognizing me in the street.”

He couldn’t tell if he wanted to throttle himself, the kid, or the world as a whole. This was supposed to be a good day, at least for Peter. A lot of stress and time and plotting had gone into  _ making  _ this a good day for Peter. This conversation had  _ not  _ been a part of the schedule.

“You’ll get used to it.”

“Maybe I  _ shouldn’t  _ get used to it.”

He shot a pleading look in Happy’s direction, but the man quickly shook his head, clearly having zero intention of stepping in to help. Awesome.

“Listen, Pete,” he stooped down a little, so they were at eye level, “this is… these are issues that’re gonna keep coming up. But right now, we’re gonna go have some carefree fun looking at a bunch of fish and, you know, other marine things, so let’s just… let’s just focus on that at this exact second. Sound good?”

Peter blushed, eyes flickering down to the toes of his sneakers. “Yeah. Yeah. That sounds good to me.”

He straightened, more than a little relieved to have swerved  _ that  _ conversation.

“So, what’re you most excited to see?”

Peter brightened, and maybe an aquarium  _ was  _ on the top 10 list of places an angsty teenager wanted to go. Who knew?

“D’you think they have any penguins?”

\--

As it turned out, Tony  _ did  _ love aquariums.

He’d never actually been to one before. His dad just wasn’t the type, and his mother or Jarvis had never had the time for those kinds of things. Peter told him that he’d been a couple times before, but not since he was a little kid.

Ben used to take him on his days off, apparently. For a second, Tony felt bad about dredging up old memories, but then he saw how bright and genuine Peter’s smile was when he told him about a specific Saturday they’d spent parked outside the Sea Lion enclosure, and his emotions reversed all at once.

They found themselves in the jellyfish exhibit first, and Peter curled up against the floor-to-ceiling glass tank and watched them float for nearly fifteen minutes. If it had been anyone else, (even Pepper, maybe), Tony probably would’ve slipped into a corner and waited impatiently. But because it was Peter, he settled himself down at the kid’s side and watched with him.

He wouldn’t admit it outloud, but the lazy bobbing and glow-in-the-dark lighting was peaceful. It settled something inside him.

After that, he let Peter drag him all around the place. They saw seahorses, eels, puffins, turtles, sharks, and the vague outline of the tentacle of a giant Pacific octopus, who was tucked up in the corner of his tank, just barely in view.

“Uh, I thought I paid to see an octopus,” Tony remarked, squinting at the sliver of red he could see peeping out from a cave in the back of the tank. “Who gave him a place to hide?”

Peter shrugged, voice quiet. “It can’t be nice to have everyone staring in at you all the time, talking about you like you aren’t there, or like… like they understand you just cause they’ve read your Wikipedia page. Sometimes it’s nice to hide.”

He didn’t think that the kid was talking about the octopus anymore, so he just nodded, and pulled him along to a different display.

(That one was about clownfish, and Peter didn’t stop making Finding Nemo jokes until they were at least two rooms away.)

Only one person recognized them the whole time: some college-aged attendant running the stingray touch tank. 

Tony could see the moment confusion morphed into recognition on the kid’s face, and the only thing he really had time to think was a really eloquent  _ oh shit _ before the gushing started.

“Oh my god,” the kid stuttered, and he at least had the presence of mind to keep his voice down, for which Tony was grateful. “You’re… You’re Tony Stark. And you,” he pointed at Peter, which made Tony’s hackles raise, “you’re-”

Peter skittered straight into his side, hand fisting anxiously in the hem of his jacket. And, damn it, this had been exactly what he’d been trying to  _ avoid _ .

He could see the security guards creeping closer out of the corner of his eye, but he’d really rather not involve them. He’d talked himself out of worse corners before. Surely he could handle a single college student working a part-time job for minimum wage all by himself.

“Yes, yes,” Tony snapped, cutting the kid off. He threw a nervous glance over his shoulder, checking to make sure that none of the other families milling around them had overheard the outburst. “I know who I am, and I know who he is. Listen, uh,” he checked the kid’s name tag, “listen Conner. We’re just trying to have a quiet trip around an aquarium, and having paparazzi on our tail would kinda dampen our vibe. Think you could keep this little encounter to yourself, and  _ not  _ get it trending all over Twitter or Instagram or whatever other weird apps you kids are using these days until  _ after  _ we’ve left? You’d be doing Iron Man a real solid.”

College-Kid nodded, vigorous and starstruck. “You’ve got it, Sir. Won’t be a problem, Sir. I, uh, I won’t tell a soul.”

He slapped on his most charismatic smile, reaching behind him to grab Peter’s shoulder and steer him away, preferably to an exhibit  _ without  _ sharp-eyed employees. “That’s a good man.”

Just as he thought they’d made clean escape, College-Kid’s voice stopped them again.

“Hey, uh, can I just…” College-Kid caught Peter’s eyes, gesturing awkwardly. “Your YouTube videos. They’re cool. The last one was real funny. With the thirst tweets. I… I watch them with my sister.”

Tony fully expected Peter to stall and bolt, so he was caught entirely off guard when he just smiled, a little shy but fully present and fully committed.

“Thanks. Uh, how old is your sister?”

“Thirteen. She gets made fun of a lot, but you made her laugh, and that’s…. Well, whatever.” The kid let out a nervous laugh. “Middle school sucks, doesn’t it?”

Peter’s nose scrunched up, and Tony could practically see his own middle school years flashing before his eyes. “Yeah, it does. What’s her name?”

“Liza.”

“Well, uh, will you tell her that I said hi?”

College-kid’s face brightened. “I will. It’ll make her day.”

He  _ did  _ drag Peter away after that, but the warm feeling in his chest didn’t abate for the rest of the trip.

\--

They stopped at a McDonald’s on the way home. He ordered Peter half the menu, because he knew that it had been a long day, and they’d only managed a few snacks at the aquarium’s cafe. The kid had to be  _ starving _ .

They ate in the parking lot. Peter had laughed when he’d suggested it, then smiled as if they were going to do something off-limits.

Maybe being a parent wasn’t as hard as he’d thought it would be.

“Good day?” He asked, watching the kid shove a handful of fries into his mouth.

“Mm. The  _ best  _ day. You’re my absolute favorite person in the world.”

He smothered a grin. “And who knew that all I had to do was take you to an aquarium?”

“It’s an aquarium now,” Peter joked, taking a huge bite out of his Big Mac, “but just you wait. I’ll get you to take me to Harry Potter World next.”

He poked a fry into the kid’s BBQ sauce. “Why would I take you to Harry Potter World?”

“Because it’s awesome?”

“For you, maybe. I don’t actually know anything about Harry Potter.”

The horror that fell over the kid’s face was comical. He even dropped his burger back onto the wrapper in his lap, as if the move somehow underlined his surprise. “You don’t know anything about  _ Harry Potter _ ?!”

“No, I do not.”

“Oh, my god. You-You’re insane. Have you been living under a rock? You’ve… You’ve definitely been living under a rock. What is  _ wrong with you? _ ”

Oh, this was golden. He hadn’t known that blatantly ignoring the pop culture trends of the 2000s in favor of alcohol and Iron Man would come so in handy later down the line, but wow. This was better than he could’ve ever imagined.

“Peter, they’re children’s books-”

Peter kept tripping over his words, wide-eyed and incredulous. “They’re  _ human  _ books. They’re… They’re essential reading for every single person that’s  _ alive _ . I can’t believe I know you. I’m associated with you, and you don’t know what Harry Potter is.”

“Oi, I know what it  _ is- _ ”

“Have you ever even read one of the books? Seen a movie?”

“Nope,” he said, cheerfully popping the ‘p’ and watching the answer hasten Peter’s descent into insanity.

“I take back what I said earlier. This is the  _ worst  _ day of my life.” Peter floundered for a moment, blinking rapidly before fixing Tony with a wet-puppy glare. “I’m buying you all the books for Christmas. There’s no excuse for this. It’s your mandatory New Year’s resolution to reach a modern enlightenment.”

“A modern enlightenment?” God, he loved teasing the kid. Watching him get riled up about something was  _ precious _ . “Through a couple books about wizards?”

“You’re not allowed an opinion on anything anymore,” Peter griped, turning away from him the best he could in the cramped car. “I’m literally cancelling you. Bye.”

“But then what’ll you call your YouTube channel, huh? It is just  _ thevlogs _ now? How about  _ thepetervlogs _ ?”

“Hey,” Peter said, an edge lurking underneath his otherwise playful tone, “maybe people’ll forget about me quicker if it’s just me.”

“Peter…”

“Sorry.” The kid shook his head, and Tony hated that he felt guilty for feeling frustrated. For just being  _ human _ . “Sorry. I… I just keep thinking about that guy that recognized us.”

_ You and me both, kid. _

“You handled it so well though, Pete.” He wondered if this was a moment where he was meant to reach out, squeeze Peter’s shoulder, or if that would be too much. “I was really proud of you.”

The kid half-smiled at the praise. “I… thank you, but… I guess it just made me realize how  _ real  _ this is. It’s one thing to see it on TV, but it’s another to  _ see it _ see it, y’know?”

“I get it.” He sighed. He wondered if they’d be circling this conversation for the rest of their lives, caught in the orbit of the fame Peter never wanted. “I want you to have a normal life, buddy. If I could give that to you, I would.”

Peter watched him for a second, poking his burger with a fry.

“I dunno. I… I’m sorry about what I said before. Really, I am, and I didn’t actually mean it. I’m… A part of me is actually starting to think that I don’t  _ need  _ a normal life. I’ve got you and May and Happy and Pepper and even Mister Rhodey. And I’m  _ happy _ . Isn’t that way more important than normal?”

The words twisted painfully in his stomach, but not because he thought that Peter was being naive. In fact, he thought that he was being incredibly wise.

It was just… a perspective that, somehow, he’d never thought of before.

“If you think so.”

“I do.”

There were a few seconds where neither of them said anything. They just listened to the honking of cars and the purr of the Audi's engine. Then,

“D’you remember the penguins? They were  _ so cool _ .”

He laughed, light and unforced in the way only Peter could bring out. 

And… And maybe the kid was right. Maybe being abnormal, maybe being  _ Tony Stark _ , wasn’t so awful after all.


	13. January 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the bus. Without you, I never would've written the majority of this chapter.  
> (Seriously, y'all. This thing was written on my phone while riding the bus and in between classes. God bless college.)

Tony did, indeed, receive an entire collection of Harry Potter books from Peter for Christmas.

The holiday itself had slid by surprisingly quickly, and with surprisingly little fanfare. Tony had made Rhodey come over, and he’d done all the cooking, which was a blessing, because Tony or May would’ve certainly screwed it all up. They’d kept it quiet, lowkey, but that was what May said she and Peter usually did and the kid seemed to appreciate it. Tony even held back on the pricetag of the presents, although that… really wasn’t saying a lot for him. Still, it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, and Peter seemed to sense that.

Overall, it was a remarkable day because it had, objectively, been wonderfully  _ un _ remarkable.

Tony was starting to like the everyday moments. As it turned out, things didn’t necessarily have to be over the top to be special.

So, they’d gone for a repeat of Christmas for New Years. For the first time in years, he hadn’t thrown a party. Instead, he kept their guests concise. It was just him, Pepper, Peter, May, Rhodey, Happy, and about a dozen blankets and heaters out on the balcony. Pepper bought champagne for the adults and sparkling apple cider for Peter. Happy helped her pour as midnight crept closer, and then the clock chimed and the ball dropped and the fireworks popped and a new year came.

He kissed Pepper as the date changed over, because he was sappy and romantic like that. And then, because he was also sappy and parental, he grabbed Peter, who had just finished kissing May on the cheek, and wrapped him up against his chest, resting his chin on the crown of his head.

“Happy New Year, Pete,” he murmured, then pressed a light kiss to his temple just for the hell of it. It really wasn’t as weird as he’d thought it might be.

He could hear Peter smiling when he spoke, words a little muffled against his chest. “Happy New Year, Mister Stark.”

“New year, new you?” He joked.

“Nah,” the kid responded, laughter in his voice. “New year, same me. Let’s not fool ourselves. I’m not changing  _ anything _ .”

“Good,” he said, smiling. “I like you just the way you are.”

Peter pulled back, eyes shining but face scrunched up in mock concern. “Are you drunk? Cause, like, you just initiated cuddling with me and now you’re being really gross and nice and stuff.”

“Shut up.” He glared. “Maybe breaking down my emotional barriers is my New Year’s resolution.”

Peter snickered. “Uh, good luck with that, I guess.”

“No, it really is,” he countered, and then he decided that maybe it really  _ wasn’t  _ such a bad resolution. “I’ve just decided, actually. New year, new me.”

“Did you just learn that phrase or something? Because you keep saying it and it’s actually a little annoying now.”

He rolled his eyes. Was this karma? Did he get Peter as payback for all those years he gave Jarvis and Rhodey and Pepper buckets and buckets of sass? God, this had to be karma.

“I’ve said it exactly twice.”

“Which is two times more than I ever expected to hear Tony Stark say  _ new year, new me, _ so, like, I still feel pretty justified in my confusion.”

“Shh,” he chastised. “You’re being annoying and that makes it  _ really  _ hard to be emotionally vulnerable with you.”

Peter had a shit-eating grin on his face now. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I getting in the way of your stupid,” the kid fake coughed, “uh, sorry: your  _ very important and very serious _ New Year’s resolution?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Oh  _ no _ . How will I  _ ever  _ shoulder the shame?” The kid drawled, eyes bright.

He’d never had a New Year's resolution before. But, then again, he’d never had much of anything to change for. 

But now… well, Tony loved Peter. He  _ loved him _ . He loved him so, so much. He loved him so much that it actually hurt, exactly in the space where people said his heart was  _ supposed  _ to be.

“God, I love you,” he breathed.

Peter’s mouth was already half open when he said it. The poor kid probably had another jab loaded and ready to go, but it got lost in the surprise that avalanched over his face once he processed the impact of those three frighteningly simple words.

“Uh,” Peter flashed him a nervous smile, “did you, uh, did you mean to say that out loud?”

“Who are you talking to?” He scoffed. “Of course I meant to say it out loud.”

The kid was blushing in earnest now. It was fun, every once in a while, to stun the teenage snark right out of him. Made for a nice change, and it never failed to remind Tony of the kid he’d first recruited, all hero worship and stuttering words.

“Oh. Okay.” Peter blinked for a few seconds. “You, uh, you’ve just never really said that to me before. I don’t know if you, like, knew that.”

“I knew that.”

“Oh. Then, uh, then cool, yeah? Yeah that’s… that’s cool. It’s… am I supposed to say thank you, or...?”

He grinned. There was a part of him that knew he ought to be feeling awkward and uncomfortable at the amount of emotion going on all around him, but he just… didn’t. It was nice, actually, to just  _ say it  _ for once. To be open and honest and clear.

He loved Peter, and he was done apologizing for loving him. The press could call it whatever the hell they wanted to, because Tony didn’t  _ care _ . He loved this kid, and he knew how it felt, and he knew how  _ he  _ wanted to define it, and that was all that mattered.

“If I’m being honest, Pete,” he said, pulling the kid’s scarf more snugly around his neck, “I don’t really know how this works. It’s not everyday that I give out declarations of love.”

Peter’s eyes went wide with realization. “Oh, wait. I-I love you, too.  _ That’s  _ what I’m supposed to say.”

He shook his head. “No, no. I don’t want you to say it because you’re  _ supposed  _ to say it, buddy-”

“No, I’m saying it ‘cause I mean it, I’m just stupid, and you caught me off guard, which was kinda rude, actually.” Despite the jab, Peter tilted his head to the side, an unrestrained smile spreading across his face. “I love you too, Mister Stark. You’re the best. Would definitely recommend you as an aquarium buddy to anyone who asked.”

He hadn’t cried in years, but he could right now, if he let himself. He swallowed it back, bottled up the tenderness and saved it for later.

“You’re the only person that’d ever get me to go to one,” he whispered, hoping that Peter didn’t pick up on how gravelly his tone was, “so recommendations really won’t be necessary.”

“Ooh, it’s an exclusive offer.”

“A Peter Only deal,” he agreed.

Just a few seconds ago, he’d been shoving down tears. Now, he was fighting back laughter. This whole  _ love  _ thing was giving him whiplash.

“I get a lot of those,” the kid said. “Peter Only deals, I mean. Is it because I’m  _ special? _ ”

“Very special, Pete.” He ruffled up his hair. “You’ve got no idea how special.”

\--

Pepper was still asleep when Tony woke up, only a handful of minutes past noon. He checked in with F.R.I.D.A.Y. on his way to the living room, who informed him that he was, currently, the only one awake.

He made himself a breakfast (lunch?) of coffee and a granola bar, the chocolate kind that Peter loved. He was sitting on the couch, still munching on his meal, when Peter wandered into the living room, steps quiet and slow, like he wasn’t sure if he was entering a forbidden space. 

It took Tony a shamefully extended moment to realize why the kid was suddenly acting like he didn’t live here. The memories from the previous night were muted with the soft haze that usually fell over past-midnight consciousness, but he still remembered what he’d said.

He gave himself about four seconds for an internal crisis, then swept it away. So what if he told Peter that he loved him? Like everyone around him kept saying: it was  _ true _ . He’d second guessed a lot of things in his life, but he’d never,  _ ever  _ second guess that.

He was tired of feeling sorry for the way he felt. His father had been dead for decades. He was done carrying that piece of his legacy.

“Morning, Pete,” he said, trying to fall into their regular pattern. “How’d you sleep?”

Peter studied him. Then, it looked like he half-shrugged to himself, and wandered fully into the room, body language loosening. “Fine. I, uh, I was really tired. What about you?”

“Same.” He jabbed a thumb towards the kitchen. “Hungry?”

“Yeah. Waffles?”

“Eggo?”

“Eggo.”

“On it.” 

He pushed himself off the couch, and Peter followed him into the kitchen, leaning against the oven, arms crossed and hair messy.

“You like the fireworks last night?” Tony asked, pulling the box of waffles out of the freezer.

Peter’s brow furrowed, like he was working through a puzzle. “Yeah. D’you remember them?”

He snorted. “What? Did you think they were  _ that  _ forgettable?”

“I thought you were drunk.”

He froze in the middle of dropping two waffles into the toaster, and stared. He caught himself after a second, but not soon enough to stop the blush that spread over Peter’s face.

“Sorry,” he stammered. “I… I guess I just didn’t realize that I wasn’t supposed to, like, know.”

He remembered Peter asking him if he was drunk last night, but he hadn’t thought the kid had actually  _ meant it _ . He’d thought he was  _ joking _ .

He couldn’t believe that this was his life. He’d made a genuine, from-the-heart admission of love, and the people around him thought it was so out of character that they were sure he would’ve had to be intoxicated to do it.

He sighed. “I wasn’t drunk, Peter.”

“Oh. I just thought…”

“I was completely sober.” He set the toaster, and turned to face Peter completely, amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Sits differently now, doesn’t it?”

The kid gave him an apologetic smile, but there was something bright filling his eyes, too, like this was the absolute  _ best  _ news. “It kinda does, actually.”

“Yeah, I bet,” he said. “But don’t expect to hear it all the time. It’s a Peter Only deal, but only on special occasions. We aren’t gonna be those people who wear it out. That’s just gross.”

“I like my Peter Only deals.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ve got another one for you, actually.”

“Today’s really my day, huh?”

“Sure is.” Peter’s waffles popped up, and he carefully transferred them onto a plate, trying not to hiss when they burned his fingertips. “I had an idea for our next video. You know, on InstaTube.”

Peter snatched his plate from Tony’s hands, glowering. “It’s YouTube, and you know it.”

“That’s exactly what I said.”

“It’s not at all what you said.”

“It’s  _ exactly  _ what I said.” He crossed his arms. “Do you wanna hear the idea or not?”

“Oh, I wanna hear it.”

“We’re going to pick out outfits for each other. You dress me, I dress you.”

Peter paused for a few seconds, pondering the suggestion.

“That’s… actually a pretty good idea.”

He resisted the urge to give the kid a shove. “Thank you for the shock, Peter.”

Peter grabbed a waffle and took a huge bite: no syrup, no butter, no  _ anything _ . Like a psychopath. “To be fair, you act like you don’t even like YouTube.”

“I  _ don’t _ like YouTube.”

“Uh-huh.”

He forced himself to redirect before he ended up bickering with a teenager for the second time that morning. There was only so much of that he could take. Every once in a while, even Tony Stark liked to feel like an adult.

“You gonna accept my idea with grace and gratitude or keep being a little shit?”

“Both,” Peter said, grinning. There was a light in his face that Tony had never seen before, like Tony’s  _ I love you _ had unlocked something precious in his eyes. “I have an addition.”

“And what would that be?”

“Well, who’s gonna judge how well we did?”

There was something about Peter’s voice that told Tony that he definitely wasn’t going to like this addition.

“Pepper,” he answered dryly, already expecting Peter to reject it.

“Uh, she’s a biased judge.”

“Then who?”

Peter blinked up at him, face sweet and innocent in the way it always was when he was scheming something.

“You know how a bunch of news people like to report on what you wear? It’s weird, actually.”

_ Oh no.  _

“I swear to god, Pete, if you’re actually suggesting what I think you’re suggesting-”

“Hear me out!” The kid exclaimed, putting his hands up in anything  _ but _ surrender. “We can go out, get some lunch, and let the news people decide how we look.”

“I’m sorry, you  _ want the paparazzi _ to catch us?”

Peter shrugged, like  _ Tony  _ was being the ridiculous one here. “I mean, they might as well do something for us for once.”

He reined himself in, took a deep breath.

_ You love this child, _ he told himself,  _ you love this child very much. He’s not actually trying to give you a heart attack. He’s just naive and that’s not his fault. _

“It’s more like  _ we’re _ doing something for  _ them _ ,” he tried.

Peter pouted. Honest-to-god pouted, wide-eyed and young. If Tony was being honest with himself, there wasn’t enough determination in the whole 50 states to resist that expression.

_ “Please?” _

He grit his teeth. He wasn’t about to admit it to Peter, but he and Pepper had been talking about letting him and Peter make a couple of public appearances. Just some small stuff, nothing publicized and nothing grand. It was mostly an exercise for Peter: getting him used to the process of navigating cameras and reporters in spaces where he’d never have to think about them existing before. The plan was to phase him back into school before the end of the spring semester, and there’d be no hiding him once that started, so it was now or never when it came to adjustment.

Tony had a sneaking suspicion that the transition was going to be a lot harder for him than it was going to be for Peter.

“I’ll bring it up with Happy,” he said, and both he and Peter knew it was as close to a  _ yes  _ as he was willing to say without damaging his pride.

Sure enough, Peter bounced cheerfully in his seat, victorious. “Thanks Mister Stark!”

“Yeah, yeah. Just remember, this kind of stuff is-”

“A Peter Only deal,” the kid finished, staring up at him with so much raw affection that Tony swore his heart physically stuttered in his chest. “Don’t worry, I know.”

He reached out and tucked a stray piece of hair behind Peter’s ear. He hadn’t really thought about it before he did it, had acted out of the emotion in his chest rather than any sort of logic, but Peter, being the personal space-ignoring octopus that he was, seemed to like it. He closed his eyes at the touch, smile never wavering.

“I think I’m spoiling you,” he finally forced out, pulling away.

“Oh, you definitely are.” Peter pushed his empty plate across the counter. “I’d like some more waffles now, please.”

He glared as he reached for the box. “You’re making your own next time.”

“No, I’m not.”

Peter was right, of course. He’d make the kid as many waffles as he wanted, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

God, he was  _ so  _ screwed.


	14. January 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just looked at the outline for this fic and I think I genuinely forgot how LONG this thing is going to be. Oh boy. I'm in for it now, aren't I?

Tony’s day began, as they usually did, with the sound of F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice.

“Boss, you have a phone call.”

He groaned. He didn’t bother opening his eyes long enough to glance at the clock. He could tell it was  _ too goddamn early for this _ just by the way his head was already starting to ache in protest.

He rolled over, wondering if the problem would just disappear if he hid in his pillow. “Tell them I’m not available.”

“It’s Ivy Foulger, Boss. The case worker assigned to Peter’s guardianship case.”

Oh, okay. Maybe  _ not  _ a problem he wanted to disappear. And definitely a problem he needed to address.

He sat up, glancing half-heartedly next to him to find Pepper, only to see empty space. She probably gotten up hours ago.

“I know who she is.” He ran a hand through his hair, firmly telling himself that he was  _ not _ nervous. Not even a little. “Put her through.”

There was a short beep, F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s way of alerting him that a call was active, and he instinctively straightened his shoulders.

“Mrs. Foulger,” he greeted.

“Mister Stark.” He could’ve easily been imagining it, but he swore that he could hear a smile in the woman’s voice. “I’m calling about your guardianship case.”

_ Yeah, no shit.  _

“You got some good news for me?”

“I do, actually.” His heart thumped painfully against his ribcage. “Your application was approved yesterday. Both you and May Parker should be getting your official notices in the mail within the next few days, but I thought I’d call ahead and let you know.”

He’d expected some kind of monumental burst of…  _ something _ . He was pretty sure that there was an emotion people were meant to feel when they became parents. An emotion singular and unique to that exact moment. Except… he didn’t feel much different than he had five minutes ago. He didn’t feel his and Peter’s relationship realigning into something new and electric in his head. 

All he actually did was deflate with relief.

“Really?”

“Really,” she said, and he could hear her amusement even through the electronic hum of the connection. “You’ll have to come into the office and sign a few things, but that’s all for now. I assume you’ll want to go tell people.”

The thought smacked him in the face.  _ I have to tell Peter. _

“Right, yeah.” He cleared his throat, forcing himself to focus through the conflicting emotions battling in his gut. “Thank you. Truly.”

“You’re very welcome, Mister Stark.”

The line cut off, and he flopped back against his pillows. The minutes passed, and he did feel  _ something _ , underneath all the relief. The sensation was surprisingly airy, like a burden had been lifted off his shoulders.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” he said, blinking up at the ceiling, “is Peter awake?”

“He is. He has been conscious for approximately 23 minutes.”

“Where is he?”

“The kitchen. For reference, he inquired about  _ your  _ location 12 minutes ago.”

“Ha. Cute,” he said dryly. “Tell him I’m on my way, and that I have news.”

“Will do, Boss.”

The walk to the kitchen was short, and Peter was curled up on a barstool when he arrived, hunched over the counter so he could stare at his phone.

“Morning,” he called out, softly, although he guessed that Peter’s spider-sense had already told him that he was there.

“Hey,” the kid greeted. He was still in his pajamas: a pair of red-and-blue plaid pants and an old gray t-shirt with the Midtown logo across the front. He set his phone aside, glancing up with curious eyes. “What’s your news?”

He forced himself to be calm, cool, like he was conveying a random story and not something that would alter both their lives in ways nobody could anticipate.

“I got a call from Ivy Foulger.” He forced himself to breathe, and the pause felt like it lasted a lifetime. “Our application was approved.”

Peter smiled. “Really?”

“Yep. You’re stuck with me for good, now. Legally.”

“Only until I’m 18.”

“Not if I adopt you,” he said, on impulse. “Then you’re stuck with me and May for  _ life _ .”

“Oh no,” Peter drawled. “A tragedy. A nightmare. What ever will I do?”

He blinked. He’d made the joke without thinking. He hadn’t expected Peter to respond to it with so much nonchalance.

“I dunno,” he forced out. “Suffer, presumably.”

“Duh.” Peter grinned, expression sparking. “You know what? We should celebrate. I mean, you get to help May decide when to take me off of life support now. That’s, like, a huge honor.”

“Okay,” he cringed, desperate to wipe  _ that  _ memory out of his brain for the rest of time, “okay. Let’s, uh, let’s  _ not  _ joke about stuff like that, okay? That’s a… a no-joking territory. Hard limit there.”

Peter rolled his eyes, like using his untimely death as humor was the most natural thing in the world. “You’re a killjoy.”

“Yeah, yeah. Take me to court for  _ not  _ wanting to imagine my worst nightmare.”

“Is it even worse than the world running out of coffee?”

_ So much worse. _

“Hm.” He pretended to think. “Okay, fair point. Maybe it’s my  _ second  _ worst nightmare. Give me a few minutes to think about it, and it might still be in my top ten.”

“Hey,” Peter said, cheerful, “that’s still pretty good.”

He walked past the counter and grabbed the coffee pot. “Ah, yes. Let’s definitely measure our worth by how high you are on Tony Stark’s Nightmare Scale.”

“Hey, that actually sounds super legit.”

He resisted the urge to snort at the kid. “Well, that’s a relief. I  _ am  _ publishing a scientific paper on the topic.”

“Are you really?”

He could tell that Peter was only acting dumb to wind him up, but he played along, anyway. “ _ No _ , Pete.”

“Oh.”

He grabbed a mug from the top cabinet. “You’re not cute when you do that, you know.”

Peter was watching him with false innocent plastered all over his face, wide-eyed and young. “Not cute when I do what?”

He pointed blatantly at the kid. “ _ That _ .”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“I swear to god,” he groaned. “You know what? It’s too early for this. I’m not going to argue with you.”

“Sure,” Peter said, leaning his elbows against the counter. “But we  _ are  _ going to celebrate, right?”

He’d never thought someone would actually want to celebrate being tied to him, in any way. He’d just… never felt celebration-worthy before. He was less a gift, more a burden. Something to  _ handle _ , not love.

But here was Peter: watching his through too-long bangs, chin cushioned in his palm, expression full of soft adoration.

“Sure, kid,” he said, swallowing down the tightness in his throat. “You got an idea in mind?”

“Lunch?”

“Sure. I’ll send Happy out for it. Wherever you’d like.”

“Nuh-uh.” Peter said, grinning. “ _ Lunch _ lunch. Outside. Please?”

He knew he’d already lost. There was nothing he could deny Peter, not today. And, yeah, maybe not  _ ever _ . It was a problem, actually. He’d have to ask May for advice.

For now, though, he just gave in.

“Fine,” he sighed, and the kid didn’t even seem surprised by his quick defeat. “I’ll tell Happy.”

“You’re the best.”

“I’m sure I am.”

\--

The diner was Peter’s choice.

If it had been up to Tony, they would’ve gone somewhere upscale, full of the wealthy and, more importantly, their hoards of security, and yet Peter had pouted when he’d suggested it, and promptly talked him into  _ this _ .

But, to be fair, his hamburger was pretty freaking good.

Across from him, Peter was scarfing down a plate of cheese fries. He’d been alight with energy ever since they’d left the Tower. Apparently, the pseudo freedom of being out in the city was all he needed.

“And  _ then  _ Ned told me that Flash totally botched the competition so MJ made him a substitute again and let Isabel on, which is good ‘cause Isabel is like super, super smart. I had her in Bio and we had a group project together once and she was  _ super  _ good with with labs. Oh, and MJ likes it because it evens out the team’s gender dynamics, which she’s super into, and honestly she’s got...”

He tuned out of Peter’s rambling when his phone buzzed against the table. It was set to only give notifications from certain contacts, so whatever it was, it was probably important.

_ HH: About 7 reporters outside. Prep the kid for having his picture taken when you leave. _

“Is that Happy?”

He looked up at Peter’s question, then stowed his phone away in one of his pockets, as if hiding away the text would hide away the reality. “Yes.”

“What’s up?”

He took a deep breath. He’d known this would happen from the beginning. This was a learning experience, a chance to let Peter dip his toes into the water, and Tony was the seasoned professional, and the seasoned professional was not allowed to panic. 

“There are reporters waiting for us in the front,” he said, watching Peter closely, trying to gauge his reaction. “Happy says about seven, but more are probably going to show up before we’re done. We’re going to have to walk past them.”

Peter popped a fry into his mouth, unbothered. “Okay.”

He hadn’t necessarily expected an all-out panic from the kid. After all, it had been Peter’s idea to do this in the first place, and Tony had warned him that this would be the likely outcome. But… He’d certainly been expected a reaction that didn’t fall into the category of  _ indifference _ . 

“Does that not bother you?”

“Not really, no.” Peter shrugged. “It’s not like they’re in here, right?”

“No, no. Happy isn’t going to let them come inside.” He studied the kid for a few more seconds. “You’re... very calm.” 

“Of course I’m calm,” Peter said, like he couldn’t believe Tony’s surprise. “I’m with you. You won’t let anything happen to me.”

He sucked in a breath. “Peter…”

“What? It’s true.”

“I’m not all powerful, kid.”

“So? It’s not like a couple reporters are a world-ending threat, Mister Stark.” He ate another fry, elbows resting on the greasy table. “It’s fine. You’re literally the definition of safety. I mean, you’re Iron Man. How much safer could I get right now?”

_ You could be on the opposite side of the Earth from me, for starters. _

“Did you know that you place an unhealthy amount of trust in me?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “It’s not unhealthy. Besides, it’s not like you’ve ever given me a reason to  _ not  _ trust you.”

“I can’t protect you from everything,” he said, voice low. “You really  _ do  _ need to understand that.”

Peter glared at him. No matter what Tony said, no matter how many times he tried to steer the kid towards something more serious, he just disregarded it. Tony didn’t know if he admired the stubbornness or if he wanted to shake the kid for it.

“Oh, my god,” Peter groaned. “Can you stop being such a downer right now? We’re  _ celebrating _ . This is a celebration. You can be all weird and foreboding later.”

“Alright,” he sighed, because to be fair, Peter was right. There was a time for this conversation, and it wasn’t then. “Alright, Pete. Celebration.”

He forced himself to eat the rest of his burger, just to conceal how anxious he really was. It was insane, really. He’d spent his entire life under the microscope of media scrutiny. This kind of stuff: getting stalked in public, walking out of restaurants to the greeting of flashing lights and strangers shouting your name, it was all a day in the life to him. All variables he had dealt with before.

Except now, he had Peter.

The thought of the kid in the middle of that chaos made his stomach turn, even though he’d known it was inevitable.

He paid the check. Took his time signing the copy that the starry-eyed waiter brought back.

“You ready?” He finally asked, shooting off a quick text to Happy, warning him that they were getting ready to come out.

Peter had been doing something on his own phone, but he put it away when Tony spoke, slipping it in his back pocket and standing. “Uh-huh.”

He followed suit, then grabbed the kid’s arm, turning him until their eyes met. “Are you  _ sure  _ you’re ready?”

In his defense, Peter swallowed his irritation well. Tony could see him physically release it. “I’m sure,” he said softly.

“They’re gonna shout at you. It’ll probably just be your name, but they might ask questions, or say something that’s meant to get your attention.  _ Don’t  _ let it get your attention, alright? No matter how much it intrigues you, or pisses you off, you can’t let them see that. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it.”

“When we get to the car, you go in first. Just slid right across the backseat, and I’ll come in after. Okay?”

“I’ve got it, Mister Stark. Seriously.” The kid gave him a reassuring smile. “It’ll be fine.”

“Of course it will,” he said, mostly for himself. “Just stick close.”

“Will do, Captain.”

Happy had, as always, done a stellar job of clearing a path between the reporters when they stepped outside, but that still didn’t stop Tony from grabbing Peter’s elbow and yanking him closer as soon as they were exposed.

As much as Peter claimed to be prepared, he could tell that the kid hadn’t really grasped just how assaulting the experience was going to be. He faltered as soon as the attention turned to them. Tony just hauled him forward, the kid tripping over his own feet for the first few steps before he seemed to regain his bearings.

They were only a few steps away from the safety of the car when Peter slowed them down, turning to blink at the mass of reporters around them. It took Tony a delayed second to realize that he was looking curiously at their faces.

Then, the kid waved.

He smiled, bright and cheerful, and  _ waved _ .

Tony couldn’t handle this. He just…  _ Jesus _ . He couldn’t handle this kid.

He moved his hand from the kid’s arm and grab a fistful of his t-shirt instead, bodily dragging him the final few feet to the car and shoving him inside.

“Whoa,” Peter said as soon as the door was closed, “that was a lot louder than I thought it was gonna be.”

“I can't believe you waved at them,” he griped, feeling a tinge of pride despite himself. Faced with all of that, Peter hadn’t panicked. He hadn’t shrank into himself. He’d  _ waved _ . He’d looked them in the eyes, and he’d  _ waved _ .

“Why not?” Peter fiddled with his seatbelt. “You’re the one who said that we shouldn’t let them know that they’re bothering us.”

“But  _ waving  _ at them?”

Peter shrugged. “They’re just people.”

He stared at the kid for a few seconds. Every once in a while, Peter genuinely baffled him. He couldn’t understand the way he saw the world. It was just so foreign, so removed from Tony’s own experience.

“You’re the strangest kid I have ever met,” he finally said.

Peter grinned. He’d kicked off his shoes, and curled his legs up to his chest, chin resting on his knees. “Is that a compliment?”

“You can interpret it whichever way you’d like.”

“I’m taking it as a compliment.”

“You would,” he muttered.

Peter watched him silently for a while, and Tony had that peculiar sensation, as he often did around Peter, that he was entirely exposed. The kid peered through his walls like they weren’t even there.

“You’re really strange too, y’know,” Peter offered, tone surprisingly sincere.

He quirked up an eyebrow. “Is  _ that  _ a compliment?”

The kid laughed.

“Duh.”


End file.
